This entry was posted on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 at 4:33 pm and is filed under Action, Horror, NEW ON VIDEO, R. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Director: Russell Mulcahy
Starring: Milla Jovich, Oded Fehr, Iain Glen, Jason O’Mara, Mike Epps, Ali Larter
Movies based on video games suck. From the Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat junk to the overrated Tomb Raider series, they all suck. So, I settled into my seat, with my face locked in a steely, determined grimace to watch my first Resident Evil movie, fully expecting it to suck. Since I was not a reviewer when the others came out, they somehow stayed off my my viewing list. Anyway, as I said, I was settled into my seat and had my pencil out, ready to give this latest piece of video game crap a scathing review, filled with clever insults and insightful observations. So, I watched and waited for the bullets to fire out of my pen (ok, keyboard, but a pen is a better image). I waited. And I waited. About halfway through I noticed something strange. This movie didn’t suck. When everything else is boiled away, this is a zombie movie. The most common problem with zombie movies is that they become monotonous and repetitive. This movie uses a variety of innovative action scenes and some quality direction to keep the feature fresh. The story is simple, but effective enough for an action feature, and for the same reason I managed to overlook characters struggling for survival who apparently take time every morning to apply perfect make-up, and I overlooked hordes of zombies with super-human strength who can set up ambushes but are stymied indefinitely by a chain link fence. The action is good and the story and characters stop just short of eye-rolling.
Milla Jovich is gorgeous (and damn nimble), as she recreates the supernaturally-powered fighting machine, Alice. The movie shifts between her story and that of an advanced research compound run by Dr. Issacs (Iain Glen), as well as a convoy of well-organized survivors, led by Claire (Ali Larter), helped by soldiers L.J (Mike Epps) and Carlos (Oded Fehr). All of these characters are trying to survive in world where massive hordes of zombies hunt for flesh (and somehow stay alive, when there is virtually none to eat, it seems)and the few remaining humans hunt for resources and an answer to their dilemma. There is a great scene with some pretty unusual crows and some beautiful desert camera work, as well as a stunning set of a buried Las Vegas. I didn’t like the obsession with cigarettes that many of the characters seem to share, which I thought was overdone and out of place. Did they pick up a few bucks by doing this? I wonder.
The action crowd and the video game fans will love this one, and it is a decent action movie. Sure, there are huge gaps in logic, and overblown characters and scenes, but fans of this genre don’t mind overlooking a few of these if they are rewarded with original and exciting action sequences. Don’t expect Shakespeare or Die Hard, but this a decent action effort.
