The problem with "Resident Evil" is that it is not a horror movie. It is an action movie with horror elements. At it's best, it's a techno - thriller rip off of "Dawn of the Dead"or "Day of the Dead" by George Romero. Both of those films are far superior to this dull, clunky, and confusing film that can't decide whether it's an action film or a horror picture.
Alice (Milla Jovovich) is the only character we give a crap about, because she's the only one who gets any proper story. We follow her from the beginning as she gets captured by a casually dressed police officer Matt (Eric Mabius) and then they are both captured by a special para-military team made of up Rain (Michelle Rodriguez), Kaplan (Martin Crewes), One (Colin Salmon), and JD (Pasquale Aleardi), plus some guy they had with them named Spencer (James Purefoy). Both Alice and Spencer can't remember what they were doing before the event, suffering from what One says is a defense mechanism triggered by The Red Queen, an artificial intelligence that cares over The Hive, an underground facility run by the Umbrella Corporation. Umbrella created the T - Virus, a highly deadly disease that will reanimate the infected once they die. That's right ZOMBIES! Once the crew's mission, to kill the Red Queen and disable her so they could re-take The Hive, goes to hell, they must deal with all the weird creepy crawly experiments gone wrong and hopefully, make it out alive.
Milla Jovovich as Alice, the most interesting character in "Resident Evil."
This movie does not guarantee a deep, pensive film that will make you think after you see it. This isn't directed by Guillermo del Toro, people, it's Paul W.S. Anderson. In other words, turn off your brain for an hour and forty minutes and savor the carnage. My main complaint about this film is that I never cared about anybody. Why did the military team take Alice and Matt? It sort of makes sense, but it doesn't.
The mansion the two were found in at the opening of the picture is the secondary entrance into The Hive. Michelle Rodriguez plays the same character she always does in every film she's ever been in. And across all decades too! She even exists in the future, with all of her big lipped beauty, kicking ass in James Cameron's "Avatar." One is the biggest Ken Foree, "Dawn of the Dead" Peter rip - off I've ever seen. It's so awful and lame. His character is a cardboard cut out of a military leader and I was happy when his fate was sealed.
Hell, the only character that is any bit interesting is Alice, as I had said. W.S. Anderson tried to do hear what "The Hunger Games" later succeeded at doing and what the "Twilight" pictures failed miserably at: create an interesting, awesome, ass kicking female lead that takes no names. It's so stupid that there aren't more women action stars. They're so much smarter than men and only now in the past few years are we getting, good, and not sexist interpretations. Alice, is a little sexist. What is a horror movie without some nudity?
Those lips will kick your ass.
However "Resident Evil" isn't a horror movie. It's an action movie. But then zombies come out of nowhere and start eating people. So it is a horror movie. Then there are gunshots and a chase involving zombie dogs that were lab experiments. So it's an action horror movie. But then it isn't because of the techno chase score. Interestingly enough, the music was written by horror score Maestro Marco Beltrami and Marilyn Manson. What the hell is going on!?
This movie wears many hats, but doesn't quite pull any of them off. But all the zombies make this a zombie picture, right? Wrong. This isn't a zombie movie. It's an action movie. The picture wants to be a horror movie, but it just doesn't quite work in the way that maybe the filmmakers had hoped. Where a movie like "Dawn of the Dead" is a horror movie with some action sequences, "Evil" is an action movie with horror elements.
Big action sequences, a dull script, killer (no pun intended) action, and a sort of strangely cool female lead make "Evil" a modern action and horror classic. No matter how much it makes me cringe to type that statement, it's true. The film has it's loyal fan base, after all that's why there are 4000 sequels to this film, based on the popular video game series. I wasn't too impressed with this film, thinking of about a dozen other movies you could watch in its place and feel far more satisfied or even peak your cinematic fancy if you're a movie gourmet. However, if you want a good afternoon at home, with friends and maybe some good food, "Resident Evil" isn't too bad a way to go.
5/10
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
Written by Paul W.S. Anderson
Runtime - 100 minutes
6.6 stars of 10 on IMDb
34% on Rotten Tomatoes
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