Someone asked me the other day why there are so many video games based on movies, yet so few movies based on video games.
The answer is fairly simple: They have a reputation for bombing.
Apart from Mortal Kombat and to a lesser degree Tomb Raider, films fail to capture the nuances that make the gaming experience so enjoyable, largely due to the fact they're made by people who don't appreciate the genre, people who just don't get it.
Director Paul W.S. Anderson gets it. He not only brought Mortal Kombat to the screen with producer-partner Jeremy Bolt, but the pair loves to pass the time on their Playstations.
New beginning
So if anyone could do justice to the hugely popular Resident Evil series -- which will spawn a fifth title come May and boasts sales in excess of $600 million US -- it's Anderson.
Aware of the games' loyal following and fans' rabid attention to detail, Anderson went about writing a script that treated the material seriously, while allowing himself some leeway by creating a genesis for the series.
The film starts with a saboteur unleashing a deadly virus in a top-secret lab located beneath the fictitious Racoon City. In order to stop the virus from spreading to the general populace, the Red Queen, the computer that runs the facility, kills everything that is infected.
Believing its computer has run amok, the Umbrella Corporation, an evil, faceless mega-conglomerate, sends in a heavily armed team of commandos to shut down the system. What the commandoes don't know, however, is that the virus has the ability to reanimate the dead, and once back on their feet the only thing they want to do is feed on the living.
Zombies
Led by Alice (Mila Jovovich), the team fights against seemingly insurmountable odds in an attempt to make it back to the surface. What awaits them down darkened corridors are zombies, attack dogs stripped of their flesh and the Licker, a wall-crawling monstrosity that mutates every time it eats.
Alice's main support comes from Rain (Michelle Rodriguez), who looks right at home with the undead given she only has one emotion -- anger -- and one look -- a grimace, both of which we've already seen way too much of in both Girlfight and The Fast and the Furious.
Thin dialogue
Contrastly, while her dialogue is video game thin, Jovovich looks remarkably at ease in this action-thriller, a throwback to her Fifth Element days (which, coincidentally, involves an almost identical semi-nude scene).
As for the rest of the cast, they do a decent enough job running around playing guess who's going to be dinner and looking genuinely terrified, even if the schlocky zombies' greatest weapon is making your sides split with laughter.
The real star here, though, is Anderson. Anyone who has played the Resident Evil game knows how terrifying it can be, the fear of what's around the next corner far more effective than the visceral horror of blood and guts.
He adopts that same style here, although more than once reverts to the heavy-handed use of ear-splittling music to try and deliver the scares.
Fans for the most part won't be disappointed -- that is, if they're old enough to watch. While any teenager can get Resident Evil the game, the movie carries an R rating, meaning many of its biggest supporters will have to wait until this one comes out on video.
For the guys who sell the popcorn, that's got to be really scary.
(More on: Resident Evil).
(This film is rated R)
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