Premise - The underground research facility for the Umbrella corporation (The Hive) is the victim of espionage. A virus escapes into the facilities air ways and the Hive's computer shuts it down and kills all of it's workers. Umbrella sends in a crack unit of troops who find amnesiac Alice (Mila Jovovich) and enter the Hive to recover the virus before it escapes and contaminates the world. However the T-virus has had a less than desirable affect on the dead, lab workers......... Resident Evil based on the hugely successful series of videogames released by Japanese company Capcom. And as you would expect, the film will mostly appeal to fans of these games (which includes me). As your watching the film, familiar locations, creatures and characters (although name changes seem to have occurred) present themselves. So fans of the game should enjoy themselves, but what about people with no experience of the games? Well, unfortunately they are not so well catered for. The film is never really sure what it is. It starts of as a sort of 2001 rip-off as the commando's go up against the Red Queen. The Red Queen is the Hives central computer who has went a bit loopy and is trying to kill everybody. This first section contains one of the films best sections, but alas even that is a rip. The computer decides to slice and dice some of the cast with laser, not unlike the cheese wire scene in Cube. The film then finally decides to unleash the zombies. From then on we are treated to carbon copies of scenes from every zombie film that you can imagine. Cliché after cliché, witness the lone commando facing a horde of zombies with only one bullet in his gun. Gasp as someone finally opens a door only to be greeted by a scene lifted straight from Dawn Of The Dead. Director Anderson might tell you that these rips are homage's, the audience knows better. In saying that though Anderson does a pretty decent job. The film is very stylish and he is certainly a competent director who has had some unfortunate criticism thrown his way. Although Soldier was a terrible film, I still think Event Horizon is one of the finest sci-fi films from the last ten years. He does fall foul of my pet peeve of the moment though. He chucks a 'bullet time' scene in to one of the fights. I have no problem with bullet time when he films context allows it (like in The Matrix or The One), but to use it just because it looks cool is an annoyance. The effects in the film range from the adequate to the downright terrible. The quality of the CGI is a joke. The licker, which is the main creature in the film is rendered laughable because of the quality (or lack thereof) of the CGI work. The make-up work on the zombies is quite good however, but how hard is that to mess up? Mila Jovovich is always a pleasure to watch and she shows more than her fair share of skin in this flick (say hello to President Bush!). One thing about her character is that since she is both the lead character and an amnesiac the audience is left wondering what's going on for large chunks of the film. The script then has to resort to reams and reams of exposition to get things going. The film doesn't so much have a script as an explanation. At no time do any of the characters interact, they just kind of go through the motions. The males are all interchangeable lookalikes. In parts of the film it's confusing as to which one we are looking at. Michelle Rodriguez does nothing to convince me that she can play anything other than a tough latino chick. As much as I'm ripping the film to bits, I was suitably entertained for the running time. However I would likely put that down to my familiarity with the videogame. The film takes place before the first game (a prequel if you will) with the final scene is set just before the start of the second and third games (which take place at the same time as each other). Confused? Incidentally the film has a nice payoff near the end that fans of the game will just LOVE. I really cannot recommend Resident Evil unless you are a fan of the games. If you are not a fan the film is just to unoriginal and I would take a mark off my score.

4/10 for Resident Evil. Poster Quote - I need an antidote.