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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, March 15, 2002

True horror eludes 'Resident Evil'

By Margaret A. McGurk
The Cincinnati Enquirer

RESIDENT EVIL (Rated R for strong sci-fi/horror violence, language, brief sexuality/nudity) No Stars (Very Poor)

Written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, "Resident Evil" is so bad it can't even steal effectively from far better movies. Starring Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez. Written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. Columbia Pictures, 101 mins.

"Based on a video game" is pretty much all you need to know to understand why "Resident Evil" stinks.

This movie, written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, is so bad it can't even steal effectively from other horror films.

Its chief instrument of horror is a mob of flesh-eating zombies lifted part, parcel and gaping head wounds from "Night of the Living Dead." Yet, even they are not enough to fill the bottomless void that is the plot of this movie, so it turns to "Alien" for a gross-out monster to scamper through the ductwork and rip open a moving train in what passes for a climax.

These encounters are occasioned by the release of a virus in a subterranean factory owned by a giant, evil entity called "The Umbrella Corporation"- and how's that for a blood-chilling name?

For reasons that make no more sense than anything else in the movie, the corporation created a virus that briefly brings dead bodies back to life as voracious cannibals. A central computer responds by killing everyone on the premises, and a fresh crew of gun-toting hard cases arrives to investigate.

"Investigate" mostly means crouching and jumping around the joint like a bunch of accountants on paint-ball patrol, while one or two characters wander off aimlessly to be frightened by the latest cunning creation of the special-effects makeup boys.

The eventual leader of the bunch is an amnesiac (don't ask) agent played by Milla Jovovich. Never a particularly animated actress, she goes through this movie with such a lack of expression that she looks like she's been Botoxed with a fire extinguisher.

Because nothing genuinely frightening or even surprising happens, "Resident Evil" tries to get over as a collection of piercing sound effects. Screeching, clanging metallic noises rarely cease — although they do serve a useful purpose when they partially obscure the moronic dialogue.

Rated R for strong sci-fi/horror violence, language, brief sexuality/nudity