Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Edison Witt The first must-see film of the year.

rlindsay-88363 Mila jovavich running around for an hour looking for a plot. If you have no idea about the game then give it a miss, nothing will make sense. It's just people running around the levels of a game being chased by zombies for some reason

merceplucas The film is alright, mostly. It's just, alright. The acting is hammy, the writing's mediocre, the soundtrack is generic, the visual look is basic and ugly, the story is generic and we've all seen it before. It lies between a rock and a hard place in the unfortunate spot of "okay." It's average. And that's fine, if you wanna watch an average action movie more power to you. But the main problem is, it doesn't have a damn thing to do with Resident Evil. The only thing that ties it to its source material is people throwing around the term "Umbrella Corporation." The Hive is made up. The Red Queen is made up. The main characters' team is made up. And hey, I mean, if you wanna maybe have your film pave its own path that's fine I guess, but the sequel for this film is very clearly supposed to be based on Resident Evil 2/3, so that excuse doesn't fly. Even if they did try to make their own story they should have had it actually feel like something that would be in Resident Evil. As it stands, the adventures of Anderson's wife in The Hive feels like fan-fiction. Except calling it fanfiction is a stretch because I'm pretty sure Anderson probably never played any of the games, and just read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. Of course at the very end, they tease with the phrase "Nemesis program" as both a fanbase ego-stroke and a sequel bait. The film is Uwe Boll-tier. In fact I think the only reason it performed better than Boll's Alone in the Dark adaptation is because Resident Evil is a Japanese series and most people over here that follow it probably know as little about it as Paul W.S. Anderson did.

The Movie Diorama No one could've predicted that this was going to be the start of something massive. Regarded by many as the ultimate guilty pleasure series, this first instalment gives us zombies, a badass female protagonist and an utterly convoluted plot. A woman simply known as "Alice" wakes up unable to recall her memories. A specialised team take her and infiltrate 'The Hive' which has entered a state of lockdown. Why? Viral breakout obviously. The infamous T-Virus. Fans of Capcom's survival horror games of the same name, will be immensely disappointed. There's no horror, there's limited survival and replicates nothing from the first game. It's simply taken the name and turned into something else. Fortunately, whilst I've played the game and discount myself as a fanboy, I honestly don't mind the lack of replication. Call it a film reinvention as you will. Doesn't stop it from being mediocre though. Paul W.S. Anderson directs what looks like a B-Movie. Cringeworthy dialogue, although with some damn good one liners from the badass Michelle Rodriguez, terrible and dated effects that are incorporated in a plot that finds itself incredibly confused. What seems like a simple infiltration turns out to be a mess fuelled by patchy flashbacks and exposition. Milla Jovovich definitely transforms herself and you can start to see her action stardom manifest. There is an almighty personality switch where her timid and quiet self transforms into the ultimate badass b**** in town. She does not give a flip what you think. She kicks a zombie dog in the face for Christ's sake! I appreciate the usage of props and makeup, but simple aesthetics does not create a good film. Mediocrity at its finest. A sentence I'll be saying consistently in these reviews...

zardoz-13 "Mortal Combat" director Paul W.S. Anderson's first entry in the "Resident Evil" franchise is basically a low-budget zombie munch-fest based on the popular Capcom video game that spawned the series. This $ 30-million horror chiller relies on several narrative devices to fuel its adrenalin-laced antics. First, the heroine suffers from amnesia as she struggles to remember what she was doing in the ultra-secret, high-tech, subterranean laboratory of the Umbrella Corporation where scientists have been conducting research and development on experimental viruses for military usage. Second, from the moment that the rescue team arrives and collects Alice (Milla Jovovich of "The Fifth Element"), Matt (Eric Mabius of "Cruel Intentions"), and Spence (James Purefoy of "Solomon Kane"), they have an hour to penetrate the Hive, carry out their mission, and exit the complex before it seals itself shut. Third, the entire experience occurs in a claustrophobic setting that accentuates the suspense after our heroes encounter a zombie horde. Everybody earning a paycheck in the Hive dies when a traitor smashes a lethal t-virus container that shuts down the facility and winds up spreading death. Fourth, the ravenous undead are not the only adversaries that our heroes must contend with; zombie Dobermanns threaten them as well as a mysteriously mutated monster with a long, elastic tongue and razor-sharp claws that can penetrate a train. Believe it or not, Anderson displays some discretion in some of the greatest gut-churning scenes. When a group is trapped inside an elevator, one woman squeezes her head through an opening and realizes too late as do her companions that she is going to be decapitated when the elevator goes upward and smashes her head. The audience, especially those that have played the Capcom game, know that you have to put a bullet in a zombie's head to kill it. Unfortunately, our stalwart heroes aren't privy to this life-saving information. Eventually, the supercomputer that regulates the Hive and takes the holographic form of an adolescent female becomes another of our heroes' adversaries.As the plot unfolds, Alice regains her memory in bits and pieces and realizes that she was the individual who had decided to expose the Umbrella Corporation. All of the laboratory technicians in the Hive perish tragically through no fault of their own because one mysterious individual sabotaged the Hive. These employees come back to life as zombies that live only to eat. These zombies are traditional "Night of the Living Dead" shambling walkers. The close quarters inside the Hive as well as the booby-traps that our heroes must navigate to avoid constitutes a primary form of suspense. At one point, our desperate heroes clamber atop the air condition ducts dangling by wires from the ceiling to escape the zombies milling about beneath them. One of the more memorable scenes takes place before this one when the rescue team arrives in a hallway that has been booby-trapped with the equivalent of a cheese grater made up of lasers to slice up the rescue team as they scramble to avoid them. Our heroine Alice—dressed in a skimpy red dress—contends with hunger Dobermanns in one of the strongest scenes in the film. Just when she thinks that she had taken care of these menacing dogs, she runs into others. Before long, even these canines mutilate undead dogs and attack Milia, but she knows how to contend with them."Resident Evil" gets the franchise off to a fitting start when our hero arrives by train.