intellectually devoid and ambiguous with obvious high points

Rating: Null/10 (19 March 2002)

This review might give away some of the plot (as little as there is) so beware
The film Resident Evil disappointed me in a lot of ways. I have played the popular game series and have grown quite attached to the story line that the game used. This movie strayed a lot from this storyline which was expected, but this was a little out there. Before I go on I will recommend that you play the games and get the full story. The remainder of this review will be detached from my own opinions about the game and will concentrate on the story. The amnesia plot gets old really quick. the story builds a small conspiracy flashback series that is way too underdeveloped for anyone to really care about it. The characters are developed poorly and their dialogue is intellectually devoid. The character Rain gives the prime example of this when she shouts "Blow me" to the cop she just handcuffed. That kind of stupidity is enough to make me cringe. Milla Jovavich's character tries to carry on a sense of grandeur and security, but fails miserably. This was supposed to be a zombie movie, but I wasn't sure what to be more scared of; the zombies or the hive that was vilified and given way too much weight in the story. There was a good sense of dread caused by the laser tunnel scenes. But, to play into the old scary movie cliche, the black guy(who happened to be the most interesting character) died towards the beginning. This left the meely mouthed tech guy in charge, you know, the one responsible for the deaths of his teammates and the release of the zombies. The movie needed to make up its mind. If it wanted a big plot with the amnesia suffering Umbrella employees there should have been more character development. It was a poorly written action flick because it didn't have a decent juxtaposition. It ended so abruptly that you just didn't care. It seemed like a mini-series more than a succinct horror-thriller. They left it open for a sequel with the Nemesis remark at the end of the movie, but honestly I don't think the interest will be there by the time they chunked another one out there. Now that I've bashed it sufficiently, I'll discuss the good points. The make up and effects were decent. It looked a little bit too much like The Mummy with all the computer generation but all in all it was cool,especially the dogs. The holographic Red Queen sequences added an eerie vibe that deserves praise. I spotted a George A. Romero homage, on purpose or by mistake. The scene where Cap tells the others to go, contemplates suicide, then makes the heroic charge, paralells the scene on Dawn of the Dead. The main thing to say about this film is that the soundtrack was beautiful. Marilyn Manson did an awesome job on this score and in my opinion made the movie worth it. I recommend this flick under certain conditions; you don't know the game that well, you don't want to think, you like to see violence, you can be affected by music.