Mind-boggling stupidity

Rating: 1/10 (25 October 2002)

SPOILERS... After a year since I last saw this mockery of film-making, I figured maybe a second-viewing would help me tolerate this film. That had to be the second biggest mistake of my life next to agreeing to go see Wing Commander. The mistakes and flaws in the film were made that much more obvious with a second-viewing I nearly had to gouge my eyes out in spite of its sheer medicority and utter ridiculousness.
I tried to like this film... it was, after all, based on the cheesy video game from Japan that had some pretty good moments. I guess it was too much of a task to have both actors and a script in a movie even though Anderson has made some horrible films with some decent acting (Event Horizon) or cheesy acting with a pretty good film (Mortal Kombat). Resident Evil has neither. The plot is generic, and serves only as an excuse to develop a senseless sequel, have Milla pose half-nude (to appease the RE fans I figure) and have plenty of zombies go ballistic. With some stretch of the imagination this COULD be tolerable and FUN but there are two very glaring mistakes in the film that stand out like a leper in a crowd:
1) Their choice of Actors - Cheesy, screwed up action films have only 2 saviors, excellent action sequences (to some degree), and at least average acting. Brotherhood of the Wolf, as ridiculous of a story as it was, had very decent acting and incredibly well-done sequences and cinematography. Resident Evil, with its silly storyline, had characters with the uncanny power to read their lines off script cards. Impressive. Can they act that horribly, or did they put effort into it? The leader of this ragtag bunch of soldiers was pretty cool. He could deliver all of his lines in monotone and display one facial expression. Needless to say, he was killed off quick. In fact, nearly all of the useless soldiers were killed off quickly (just like John Carpenter's Vampires) which I guess was a plus for Anderson. Michelle Rodriguez, playing in vain as the Vasquez-hack of Aliens (more about this later), tops him by emoting one emotion along with her delivery of lines in monotone. Sad, she was wasted in this film. A myriad of other characters share this same profile, including the dear Milla who can kill zombies with martial arts even though an entire clip of a MP5 will do nothing. By the way, why was she trained to do this? She could kick some serious behind for no explicable reason yet her partner/husband (this was never explained either) had none of the training? I assume all of this was discarded to ensure the people will return for the explanation in the sequel. At the other end of the spectrum, we also have Eric Mabius, who could display two emotions... slightly confused, and very confused. You know I've read the early drafts to this heinous monstrosity and he annoyingly keeps adding about how the suspense of this movie will freak you. Sorry, buddy, your whole crew of actors actually made us laugh more.
2) Hacking other movies - I can point out at least a half dozen different scenes where Anderson (who loves to recycle other people's work) pulls from Aliens. These aren't subtle attempts, or clever renditions. I'm assuming his thought process was like this:
Anderson: Wow, I just thought up of a cool and gruesome way to kill off all of my useless actors! What can I do to make it "suspenseful" and filled with "tension".
Anderson's Brain: How about watching the movie Aliens and copy the scene where the marines were attacked for the first time?
Anderson: Good idea! Let's see, I'll take the Hive, the Queen, and even the Aliens popping out of nowhere and snatching people. I could even recycle the lines without changing them! I am a GENIUS!
Pretty pathetic, and I'm not even going to bother pointing out the stupidity of some of the plot elements or the other movies it borrows heavily from (like Odyssey). By the way, if this T-Virus was so powerful we are led to believe, why does it take a millennia for it to take effect on a live person?
All in all, I couldn't find a single shred of entertainment in this. Why would I? If you took a recipe for Chicken with sauce diable and you thought it'd be neat to recycle it and throw in tang and peanut butter, it's not going to taste any good.
3/10