Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

These days it’s incredibly difficult to make a bad film. Actually, scratch that. It’s actually a lot easier to make a poor film appear to be quite good. Got a poor script? Marinate the film in millions of dollars worth of high-tech CGI, throw in some really loud sound effects and music, and don as many actresses as you can in skimpy clothing, and who’s going to notice mundane things such as a plot, plausibility or general quality?

The problem with information like the above is that should it fall into the wrong hands then things can go horribly wrong. Okay, so Stephen Sommers may be slightly guilty of overexposure with The Mummy Returns, but at least he takes the time out of his day to deliver a plot of sorts, and also maintain high levels of fun.

But should some no-mark amateur like, oooh let’s say Paul W.S. Anderson, get wind of the chance to disguise obvious career limitations, what we get presented with are some of the most laughably pathetic films on record. As keen it was to be the self-proclaimed “The Shining in space!”, Event Horizon was just a confused, messy and rather laborious affair. But compared to Anderson’s latest effort, the much-anticipated live action version of classic console fright fest Resident Evil, this 1997 space thriller is positively genius.

Computer games have never really made very good films, as too often filmmakers fail to capture the appeal of their pixelated inspiration. But to ruin something like Resident Evil, a thoroughly original and utterly engrossing videogame that was rife for translating onto the big screen takes a lot of talent. Containing incredible backstory, nefarious double-crossers and the nastiest mutations ever witnessed in a civilised world (word up to the zombie sharks!), the only qualities Anderson seems to have captured for his film are puzzles that wouldn’t tax the average two year-old, atrocious dialogue, and extravagantly bad acting.

Granted, it hits the ground running: after the workers of the Microsoft-like Umbrella Corporation are ceremoniously killed by the Red Queen, a homicidal supercomputer, after the dangerously toxic T-virus is inadvertently released, a team of crack commandos are sent into the epicentre of a vast underground research complex known as the Hive in order to return any known survivors, and isolate the possible bio-hazard. In true race-against-time fashion, they have just three hours in which to complete their mission, after which they will be sealed in the labyrinth, period.

On board the mission is the amnesia-ridden Alice (Milla Jovovich); the seriously man-like Rain (Michelle Rodriguez); supposed police officer Matt (Eric Mabius); computer whiz Kaplan (Martin Crewes) and fellow squaddie and amnesiac Spence (James Purefoy), to whom Alice appears to be married. The usual ragbag of macho cliches - the tough as nails captain; the overly confident jock-esque cretin, silent medi etc - all make an appearance but are so blatantly underdeveloped that there’s little point in divulging much more: these guys are rife for the slaughter.

And slaughtered they are, in the films one genuine high-point, a wonderfully sadistic laser orientated slice and dice sequence that disposes of the disposable in a brutal and efficient style.

It’s after this show-stopper of a moment however where Resident Evil all goes terribly wrong. The first sighting of the zombies - a result of the aforementioned virus - is completely cocked-up by some of the worst make-up effects ever to make it onto the big screen. Looking like anaemic alcoholics with bad skin blemishes, these much publicised entities are not so much undead as dead on their feet. Even Michael Jackson’s Thriller video looks better than this.

Anderson also makes the fatal mistake of overusing these hungry freaks, resorting to countless face-offs between dwindling survivors and brain-lusting abominations that are not even remotely scary. Poor baddies aside, these fights aren’t helped by Anderson’s gutless direction wherein all forms of gore and gunplay are completely censored in favour of flashy editing and suggestive violence. What few decent moments of fisticuffs we are presented with - Alice’s masterful disposal of a pack of hell hounds owes a lot to The Matrix, but is nevertheless enjoyable - are too few and far between to warrant anything more than a fleeting appraisal.

Of course, zombies (be they human or animal) are what the video games were all about, but they weren’t the only foes witnessed: mutated spiders, gargantuan snakes and decapitation-happy “Screechers” were all deadly obstacles offered to us by Capcom, but noticeably omitted by Anderson. The only alternative on offer is the promisingly named “Licker”, a creature that is most chilling when you barely catch small glimpses of it scurrying up walls, but downright silly in its few spotlight scenes. Okay so that tongue is sure to get one or two nerve-endings jangling, but it’s hardly an adversary worthy of concealing right up until the climax, and even then it fails to hit the required marks, offering few frights or much of a challenge to our protagonists.

The film also uses these battles as a lame means of getting out of the quieter moments: rest assured that as soon as the film has finished spoon-feeding us plot details it’ll attempt to move things along via yet another boringly predictable zombie/human scrap that conveniently takes us to the next available plot point.

Which moves us onto another niggling aspect, namely the plot coherency or, more importantly, the complete lack of it. Time after time after time the film shifts from scene to scene without any real genuine conviction. In one scene, for example, we see Alice discussing certain whimsical details with Matt, and literally seconds later they are running from a horde of zombie’s baying for their blood. No tension, no gradual build-up of impending doom, nothing. Anderson just seem intent on getting as many jumps in there as humanly possible with nary a thought for structure.

Such lazy editing even manifests itself during a potentially awesome moment where our heroes are supposedly caught between a rock and a hard place, their only means of escape being an upper ledge located behind an inclosing cluster of the walking dead. A life threatening situation it may be, but one short edit later and Alice and co are high and dry on said extension, away from danger and ready to continue their quest.

It’s not even much of a surprise when Anderson resorts to desperate measures to snag the teenage boys who are, after all, Resident Evil’s lifeblood. Suffice to say, this involves Jovovich’s effective heroine exposing as much flesh as possible and not bothering with this whole ‘acting’ malarkey. Rodriguez is perhaps the films best player, if only through default, exhibiting a true knowledge for the genre, even if she has previously proven herself to be much better than pap liker this.

A preposterous story (complete with ridiculous sub-plot containing deception, forgotten ambitions and countless flashbacks), poor acting, cheap special effects and apocalyptic ending render Resident Evil resembling an episode of The Outer Limits, certainly more than a true Hollywood film. It all feels like one big set-up for the incoming sequel that fails to deliver anything in the way of scares or sympathy. Considering the bloodthirsty appeal of the videogames, you’d be forgiven for expecting a little in the way of gore-ridden gratuity, and some seriously stylish weaponry, but Anderson has neither the spine nor the maturity to handle either.

Feel free to make a sequel guys, but unless you make even the slightest attempt to recreate the massive potential this license holds, you might as well not bother on our behalf. This is garbage of the highest order that will leave the average homosapien feeling cheated, let down, severely unfulfilled and, above all, more than a little zombiefied.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older
Special Effects: Well at least you can't see the strings