Brainless violence and not much else...

Rating: 4/10 (5 June 2008)

I am a huge fan of video games. I love the medium just as much as I love movies, but when a couple of people up at Hollywood decided to merge the mediums together, 9 times out of 10 the merge turns out to be a waste of time and money. Your money, that is. This movie is nothing more than a cheap cash-in on a great series of games. It is a huge disappointment on a vast array of levels.
The only area this movie prevails in is it's action, but even that area is in really rough shape. The action is violent, gory, and devoid of all intelligence. The action ranges from some neat zombie vs. human confrontations, such as being the human's being trapped in a sewer and zombies are approaching from all possible sides, but at other times there are some real stupid sequence taking place (Kung-Fu lady vs. Zombie Dogs!) that are really embarrassing. Plus, the action gets really stupid when the CG starts to kick in, given that the CG looks dated compared to today's modern video games. No joke.
All other areas in the film really suck. The story is bogus, disjointed, and incoherent. The acting is bad (probably intentional, given the voice acting in the games is bad as well), and the production values are not as high as they should have been. To top it all off, you get Paul W. S. Anderson, a man who has brought more shame to the movie industry than Nixon brought to politics. His stupid one-liners, dumb cinematography, bad editing, and pitiful script should be the prime examples in this country's film schools on how NOT to make a movie.
To be honest, I had a little fun with this dumb movie. With all the absurdities and such, I just decided to make a joke out of the movie and not take anything serious at all. I think I wound up liking the film because of that.
All in all, Resident Evil is a corporate cash-in on the name that really dose not deserve such a bad adaptation. Unless you desperately want to see zombies get their fillings of brains, just avoid this film unless you really want to see it.