Resident Evil ... Paul W.S. Anderson brings another popular record breaking/Historic video game franchise to the big screen. We follow Alice on her journey to learn the truth about the Umbrella Corporation and the deadly man-made T-Virus outbreak. First to point out that the plot has been completely changed from the game and the characters are not the same. Alice is a strong and smart female played perfectly by Milla Jovovich. It's action packed and thrilling from beginning to end but that alone couldn't save it from poor execution, a poor script and overall cheesy feel.
Not a terrible movie by any means. in fact, there was surprisingly a decent amount of things I liked in this movie. Like Mila Jovovich herself, some of the characters, and I appreciated their focus on tension building and story development between the characters. However... the movie is way too slow at times, has mediocre action sequences at best, absolutely terrible CGI, way too many predictable jumps scares, and was overall not nearly as entertaining or exciting as you would come to expect from a movie with a premise like this.
Resident Evil is a movie about people escaping a giant research center full of zombies. I'll have to admit this was pretty bad. The first thing I didn't like it was the costumes. I mean do these people look like they're in an apocalypse?!? Well, a skirt, mini shirt, and leather boots and jacket don't cut it.
Second is the storyline. I felt as if this was written by a twelve-year-old. It was just so random. Zombies popping out of nowhere. It's as if they magically spawn.
Last is the punchlines and suspense. The punchlines are really cheesy. After the hacked the door open I saw an S.W.A.P soldier say "Checkmate!". And the suspense. The music feels a bit more energetic than creepy. I wouldn't even call this horror. The action and blood and gore were cool, but after a while it was tedious. Grade "C+
How do you make a video game adaption work, hire Paul W.S Anderson? No that's not it, what about cast Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez? Well no but it feels more promising, oh I know actually, lets just make an all out crazy movie with little realistic dialogue and some poor acting. See that seemed to do the trick because this movie is a poor one, I didn't find it completely bad but it's still pretty bad anyway. You know I'm the kind of film fan who can truly enjoy movies with a premise like this but when they cast the wrong people behind the camera and on it, you just can't forgive the producers for this one. Resident Evil is based on the popular video game of the same name and definitely, see's the kind of action you might expect from such, not altogether a really un-enjoyable ride, but just a movie that is unlikeable.
We see Milla Jovovich waking up and not knowing what the hell is going on, we also see James Purefoy with the same old predicament and both seem to need to know what's going on. In steps a whole team of people who have been sent in to investigate a thing called the "Hive" an underground facility that seems to have done some bad things to test subjects and even employees. The film is packed full of insane action, kick ass stunts and zombies (including zombie dogs) and really does pack quite a punch. I didn't feel this film was bad because of the action actually, it is what makes this slightly exciting and at least the movie has a certain horror element to it and can make you kind of jump.
It wasn't the directing that made me cringe, it was the writing which seems to rip this movie apart, the cast can seem almost lifeless at moments with this script and the small talk is well, none existent. The cast does give it their best at certain times but in others, it can feel as if they are trying too hard to make this dramatic and Anderson does nothing to help them. I think the only real redeeming factors in this are that it is not awful and not even maybe fully bad but still just poor, as I said the fighting and all the things like that are the only things that keep this afloat before it sinks into the abyss of movie garbage.
As for the actors themselves I can't say I liked any of them, Jovovich is not bad but she fails as her role to lead the movie and ends up in moments being second fiddle to more exciting characters. Michelle Rodriguez is probably more exciting than her but even she can not make this any better, coupled with the writing too, I just couldn't forgive this movie and felt disappointed. The story is played out well kind of full blown just go for it which does work in its favour somehow, I didn't want any plot for large parts of this because I was enjoying the fighting, there are way too many obstacles set in this movie but I can say at least you get a few thrills and that's what is important.
So, all in all, it is Anderson who truly damages the film, not as much with Jovovich or the cast as they are just sucked into the director's work. I think in fact I know for a fact many will enjoy this and think me crazy for saying this is poor, but just look at the film properly and really don't let it take you for a ride without first showing you its poor skills. I do however recommend this to all horror fans and action aficionados as it basically will do what it says on the tin really, scare and thrill.