downright shocked at how not lame it was.

Rating: 8/10 (14 March 2002)

Traditionally, this time of year is devoted to films that are either bucking for Oscar consideration or too dreary to be released at any other time of the year, basically meaning that any movie one sees before the couple of weeks before Memorial Day is going to be really good or really bad. It seems that, this year, those movies that aren't Academy-Award hopefuls have been, across the board, gawd awful, representing some of the worst films that Hollywood has had to offer in the past 5 years. With those unpleasant experiences in mind, it is with a sense of sheer trepidation and lowered expectations that one goes into a movie like _Resident Evil_, whose trailers make it seem akin to most of the wretched movies that have come out so far this year. Perhaps, it is because nothing exceptional is expected of it that I begrudgingly have to admit that this movie is really not that bad. In fact, I could go so far as to say it was quite watchable. admittedly, there are plot holes, Michelle Rodriguez seems wasted in her role, and the material owes a great debt to George Romero's work, but once one gets past all that, a big dumb popcorn movie is there for the taking. In its favor, the actors give convincing performances, the cgi effects are used sparingly enough so that when one does get large doses of it, they don't look obviously fake like in the Harry Potter movie or _Jumanji_, and the movie overall displays an understanding that while it doesn't have the chops to actually scare you, it also doesn't over-rely on startling moments like so many horror movies will nowadays. Is it worth the full price of admission? Compared to some of the alternatives playing in theaters, I'm afraid so.
As a sidenote, who among us knew that, at this point in our lives, with Paul T. Anderson slaving away on an Adam Sandler movie, the other Paul Anderson would make a more satisfying movie without any pretenses?