Anderson resumes failure

Rating: 3/10 (11 February 2007)

After the first Resident Evil film, it was inevitable because of the low budget that a sequel was in the works. Whereas the first film was a prequel of sorts to the first game, this one is (I think) a story about Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Again, departing from the story of the games is an interesting choice, but when the source material is just so much better than what Anderson can come up with, you have to ask, why does he continue to do it? He can't write a script, or direct an action scene without stealing from something else - the way he keeps himself original is through terrible editing, I guess.
I give Anderson credit for at least putting some characters from the games onto the big screen. These include Jill, Carlos, Nicholai, the Nemesis himself, and a few others. Though of course, these characters are the same in name only, and stray far from what they were and should have been. Jill is now cocky and soulless, who can't take care of herself without the return of Alice, aka superwoman. Carlos does nothing important, and Nicholai, who was such a badass villain in the games, dies pathetically to a single zombie dog. Ugh.
Now, onto the Nemesis itself. The monster looked pretty good and I was happy that they kept him mostly as an elaborate costume rather than CGI. In the games, Nemesis was nearly invincible, only dying after sustaining massive damage from a giant RAIL GUN. (SPOILERS -Needless to say, Nemesis doesn't live up to his real strength, and dies in the worst fight sequence I have ever seen. You can guess who it's against.) END OF SPOILERS.
The film is badly paced, badly written, badly directed, badly acted, and it laughs in the face of all fans of the series. Paul W.S. Anderson resumes his failure, and he will continue to do so. As long as the people in charge at Hollywood fail to realize that a video game turned to film has real potential, other than slightly-better-than B-grade cinema, the video game movie will be forever wasted.