Starts off great, then goes horribly wrong.

Rating: 6/10 (23 August 2009)

I was one of those people who really didn't like Paul WS Anderson's original "Resident Evil" film for several reasons. I thought it was too stylised, not scary enough, and that it had no respect for the source material whatsoever. I was also kind of sore that Anderson and his awful script had been chosen over the vastly superior Romero script.
To start with, the film seems far more impressive than the first one, with a plot that is not only more ambitious, but much more like that of the games. In REA, the T-virus outbreak has reached epidemic levels, spreading throughout Racoon City and turning much of the populace into flesh eating zombies. The plot itself is predominantly drawn from Resident Evil 3, following STARS babe Jill Valentine (accompanied by Alice from the first film) and special ops grunt Carlos Oliviera as they try to outrun mutant killing machine Nemesis, although the lost child subplot from RE2 is also included (sadly, Leon Kennedy isn't).
At first, this film's reputation as the worst of the Resident Evil films seems unwarranted. The first 2/3 are excellent, action packed, survival horror with a lot of nods to the games and some real standout scenes (especially the extended action sequence in an abandoned church, where it emerges the priest has been feeding his "sick" sister). There are some impressive visuals, some effective gore and lots of hot chicks kicking arse.
Then at the last 1/3 of the film everything goes to hell in a handcart, any semblance of horror thrown out and replaced with brainless, incoherent, heavily clichéd CGI action in which Alice fist fights with Nemesis, and ultimately leading to a scene so unspeakably awful that it negates the whole film, as Nemesis is revealed to be Alice's ex-boyfriend and then, realising his feelings for her, joins the side of the heroes.
The acting could best be described as variable. Milla Jovovich is great as Alice and Sienna Guillory nails Jill Valentine so well she could have just stepped out of the game. The rest of the cast are less than impressive. Oded Fehr is wooden as a Spruce as Oliviera, while Mike Epps' LJ is essentially little more than a racist stereotype. The direction is also something of a mess. The camera is all over the place, the editing is sloppy and there is way too much fake looking CGI.
All in all, it makes for frustrating viewing. Unlike the first film, it does attempt to do the games some kind of justice and follow a canonical plot and I really wanted to like it for that. The trouble is, while it starts off great, it loses focus before the end and just panders to the ADH brigade, degenerating into a popcorn action flick. I personally prefer it to the original. Is it a better film technically speaking? No.