VERY disappointing

Rating: 1/10 (12 September 2004)

Well, mark off yet another franchise ruined. This movie was disturbing, but not in the horror movie sense. No, it was disturbing because of how similar it felt to House of the Dead, quite possibly the lowest grade zombie movie made in the last 10 years. The really sad part is, House of the Dead had more horror in it than Resident Evil 2 did! This movie was practically gore-less, no doubt to keep the ratings low to attract the cash kiddies.
Like HOTD, Resident Evil 2 feels like the director ran around Toronto with the cast, going "ok, a grave yard, this will be a cool place to film". It felt scriptless, like it was made up on the spot. While some may thing that this would lend a little spontonaity to what might otherwise be a formulaic movie, they'd be wrong. All the lack of direction added was a boat load of cheap one-liners, bad dialogue, and the worst attempts at European accents I've ever heard. It felt like the director simply came up with ideas on the spot; anything he thought was cool he'd add it, regardless of it not fitting at all. "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if Alice drove a motorcycle through the stain glass window to get into the church!". This sort of stuff isn't mindless entertainment, I'm a big fan of mindless, but this was just idiotic.
The whole movie plays out like a music video, with fast edits, and machine gun cuts. HOTD also pulled this trick numerous times. Both films even share a similar flashback sequence where they show all the previous events in the film strobing to the drum beat in the background music.
All in all, I think this movie REALLY lost the scope of the first film. The first Resident Evil, like the game, was a "survival horror". It featured people trapped inside an enclosed space with deadly zombies and mutants. In RE2, the whole scope is broadened too far, making it feel more like Escape From New York rather than a survival horror.