It's trash, but you should know better by now.

Rating: 1/10 (17 September 2010)

This movie was not worse than I expected. However, it wasn't really much better, either. I'm not going to nitpick apart all the places where it failed to do justice to the games it (falsely) claims to draw inspiration from, and frankly there's plenty of other stuff wrong with this movie to warrant a bad review. Pretty mucht 90% of the movie is shot in slow motion, and Milla Jovovich is still just as obnoxious of a female protagonist as she's ever been. Not only is she doing the female equivalent of Christian Bale's Batman voice for the whole thing, but now she makes video blogs throughout the film to convey exposition, which adds an extra layer of tedium to the film's already tedious first half. Secondary characters for the most part only occupy space (BTW, is it just me, or does Ali Larter's face constantly look like it needs to be slapped?), Shawn Roberts eats the scenery like he's in a fan film playing Agent Smith from The Matrix, and there's YET ANOTHER ridiculous amnesia plot device thrown in to conveniently prevent Paul W.S. Anderson from having to write convincing relationships between his characters.
This game does borrow a few elements from the games, but for the most part it borrows from Resident Evil 5 which is unfortunate since that's one of my least favorite in the series-- especially the scarabs, which IMO were a lazy plot device and they're used just as lazily in this film as they were in the game. Again, I don't want to overemphasize what was changed from the games, because even though these things are frustrating to me as a fan they are not ultimately what makes this movie bad. It's Anderson's ridiculously overwrought sense of "style," the brain-dead script, the acting which ranges from lethargic to mustachio-twirling levels of ham, and the overall goofiness of the whole thing. I can't say I was disappointed though. It was not any worse than what I expected, and honestly anyone ought to be able to tell what kind of movies these are just by looking at the posters. They're essentially Paul Anderson's multi-million dollar birthday presents for his wife, who happens to play the main character.
Also, I must mention the 3D, which is of mixed quality despite it's claims of "using the technology behind James Cameron's Avatar." The 3D is just as spotty and obnoxious as the rest of the film, and when things aren't flying in your face, they're either too blurry and distorted to make out or just plain 2D looking. However, the extra $3-5 that it adds to the ticket prices has helped ensure that this will be the most profitable movie in the series and that Paul WS Anderson won't stop making them any time soon. My patience for the medium is fast dwindling, and I think next time I see a movie I'll save a few dollars and ask for 2D.