Decent update of post-apocalyptic zombie horror.

Rating: Null/10 (25 February 2004)

I have to admit, I was pumped at wanting to see the Resident Evil movie upon its release. I had been a fan of the videogames and wanted to see how they
would translate it. It is quite evident that the filmmakers had a good concept of the game and were familiar with it. However I was skeptical on seeing another translation from videogame to movie, as most have been awful. Another important thing for the game to succesfully translate well, it would have to be R rated. If you had played the games, you would understand why. The failures of other games into movies were to rate it PG or PG-13 just to get kids in the seats, good plan, but not always the way to do it. The best example being Mortal Kombat, and its even worse sequel. When the MK games debuted, they were extraordinarily popular and notorius as being the most violent games ever made. So turning it into a hammy PG-13 movie really destroyed its hopes of relying on its history and turned off hardened fans of the games' series.
So I was delighted Resident Evil got the R rating, but waited for home release before giving my thoughts. I heard many comments from critics and the average movie going people and it was mixed reviews all the time. So what did I think?
The movie was good for me as a fan of old Italian horror and zombie flicks, even though they were mostly poor films, they have a following like no other sub-genre in film history. I like the post-apocalyptic feel and look of the movie and its easy to say it was made with great style, but the substance was lacking. This would be partially in effect of the director, writer and editors.
I did enjoy the way they were able to make a story, but when they ran out of ideas, just cramming it with zombies for 5-10 minutes of screen time til you get to the next point in the story is a cheap cop-out. The casting of the movie was also interesting. Milla Jovovich as a sc-fi/action/horror hero? Michelle Rodriguez fresh off a support role in The Fast and the Furious? and Eric Mabius? Obviously they weren't going for star power and having the two women as the leads was a peculiar choice since the games almost always had a strong male hero.
Jovovich however, worked for me after the movie got going. She was easy on the eyes as usual, but kicked some ass along the way. I liked the choice for her in the movie but Michelle Rodriguez's character should have died off right away. She doesn't have the charisma or likeability to want her here, unlike her breakout performance in Girlfight.
Paul Anderson has made sci-fi and action before. In Event Horizon and Soldier, both which weren't too good, but showed he had a technical know-how and a sense of visual flare. Same goes for this one. The action scenes are fairly well done, and he does add a few effective scary sequences.
Jovovich and Mabius will be back in the inevitable sequel in the early Spring of 2004, but director Anderson skips out and serves as producer as he is working on directing yet another videogame/movie crossover, the mediocrely anticipated Aliens Vs. Predator. This time he hands the directing duties over to Alexander Witt, who has spent most of the past few years as second unit director of photography on some good movies. These include Pirates of the Carribean, xXx, The Bourne Identity, Red Dragon, Blackhawk Down and Gladiator to name a few.
While I hope the sequel improves on the downfalls of the original, I do reccommend it, slightly to those who enjoy sci-fi horror, the videogame series or zombie flicks. It isn't as gory as the works by Lucio Fulci, Ruggero Deodato, Umberto Lenzi or George A. Romero, but when was the last time you saw a zombie flick? Especially one from Hollywood?
I give Resident Evil (2002) ***/4 *'s