Bad ripoff of the Alien series

Rating: 5/10 (27 September 2005)

When seeing Resident Evil (the first part), I was surprised how Milla Jovovich could actually fit a role different from her "Leeloo" role in "The Fifth Element", fit a role that wasn't made to be ridiculous.
Now, she was nowhere near the proficiency of Sigourney Weaver in her first appearance in Alien (to which I seem compelled to compare Resident Evil to), but still, when in doubt, I give credit to the actors for a film that entertained me.
But: I believe I was wrong. The first part wasn't entertaining because Milla Jovovich played a leading part, but rather, because someone out there thought of a story which was fascinating enough in itself to entertain a science nerd.
Now, because people thought they could make money out of the franchise again, they created a second script, which basically is a bad ripoff of Alien IV in a sense. I'm not going to go into the storyline any deeper, but if you look at the premises made at the beginning of Resident Evil II, you'll see how remarkably similar they are to the transformation Ripley has made at the beginning of Alien IV.
Now, for Alien IV we have a certain explanation why this transformation has taken place, at least if you know the last three parts of the saga, whereas Resident Evil II leaves you hanging in thin air.
This isn't the only part where Resident Evil II lacks any explanation of why things happen as they do, but I'm not going to spoil the first hand experience, as the zombie-horror part of the film isn't as bad as it might seem at first.
Although the director experimented much too much with post-processing effects such as blurring the movements of the zombies and several other such gimmicks, the overall experience is quite OK if you just look at the zombie-splatter-horror-carnage part of the movie.
And, actually, that's why, lacking any explainable and original story whatsoever, this movie gets 5 out of 10 from me.