So. Instead of discussing a good zombie movie such as the seminal Night of the Living Dead or it's equally worthy follow-up Dawn of the Dead I'm discussing Resident Evil -a movie based on a series of video games that owe more than a bit of their formula to horror movies such as George Romero's Dead flicks. In other words I'm reviewing a movie that's based on a game that's based on a movie. That's quite the pedigree so it's not surprising the law of diminishing returns catches up with Paul Anderson's big screen Resident Evil adaptation.

The movie starts out promisingly enough. A group of workers in some unidentified building are quarantined and subsequently killed by a computer that is ruthlessly trying to prevent the spread of an airborne virus. The movie then cuts to a woman [Milla Jovovich] waking up on the floor of a shower. Staggering through the gothic house it becomes apparent she has no idea where she is. Just as it seems she has convinced herself that she is only jumping at shadows a commando team bursts into the house and take her and a few other people who are meandering about the house captive.

The movie starts out with death, nudity, and people with machine guns jumping through windows. So far not too bad. So what's wrong with the movie? Pretty much everything afterwords, actually. One of the commandos informs the woman who I guess was named Alice -if any of the characters actually had names they must have blurted them out so quickly that I never caught them- that beneath the house she is in is a vast, secret underground laboratory, known as the Hive, where 500 employees of the Umbrella Corporation worked and lived. Something went wrong, the safety measures -that included blasting Alice with plot convenient amnesia gas- went off, and the commando team was sent in to find out what happened before the base fully shuts down in an hour or so.

First off, how could you build a "secret" underground base that's capable of supporting 500 people without anyone finding out about it? Who would be willing to work in a place like this? [And you thought your job sucked!] Why does the computer kill everyone then wait awhile before it fully shuts down? It's a nonsense premise that could easily have been lifted from a James Bond movie. Since the basic premise of the Resident Evil games -that someone thought a virus that turns people into zombies would be a good money making idea for Umbrella Corp.- is pretty goofy it's not surprising the movie adaptation is also a bit shaky in the logic department.

Milla Jovovich does a good job of looking clueless through most of the movie [at least I think she was acting] and running around in a strange looking action shorts/summer dress combination. Michelle Rodriguez -who's in the running with Julie Strain to be the B movie queen of the 21st century- is also in the movie as one of the commandos. Rodriguez spent a majority of her screen time screaming obscenities, shooting an automatic weapon, or throwing up. What a classy dame.

For a few moments it looks like Resident Evil is still going to succeed on the basis of atmosphere alone. The scenes of the commando team cautiously bolting through the oddly empty hallways of the Hive have a certain level of creepiness to them. There are signs of commotion but, strangely, no bodies. The only noise -besides occasional bursts from the inappropriate sound-track- is the sound of grinding metal. Is it regular background noise? Is the computer controlling the Hive activating something? Is somebody or something trying to get out of wherever they currently are? You know the team is going into a bad area but the anticipation of what's going to happen as they get themselves inadvertandly trapped further and further inside the Hive makes for some entertaining tension.

A few moments of suspense, however, don't make a movie and neither do empty hallways and clanging metal noises. The folks making this movie seem to have realized this as well and finally start bringing in the thrills. After a few characters who's names I also didn't know died -you know you're expendable when you die before the actual action in the movie starts- the zombies finally come out. Right at this point when the movie should come to life [so to speak] it instead falls apart.

I went to see Resident Evil since it's been forever and a day since a zombie movie has played in town. You can't seem to swing a cat without hitting a vampire movie or the endless idiotic slasher films that clog up the cineplexes but an actual zombie movie on the big screen is a rarity. Instead of expecting anything deep, or even anything good, I at least hoped I would see some freaky zombies. Without a doubt these were some of the worst looking zombies I have ever seen. Sure, the people had only been dead a few hours but having the heroes stuck in a room full of "zombies" -who are nothing more than a bunch of extras with dishelved clothes and some random blood splotches making "Raaaah" noises- does not inspire a lot of dread. This may also be the least violent zombie movie I have ever seen. It's not like it's The Magical World of Disney getting over-run by the undead but a large amount of the violence is off-screen or seriously lacking in the presentation of blood and innards. I make mention of this not because I'm a gore junkie but rather I find it interesting that a modern zombie movie like Resident Evil is so much more gutless when it comes to blood and guts than it's much older predecessors. Is this the difference between the mainstream presentation of Resident Evil and the drive-in/underground point of view of previous zombie movies or is it a reflection of the conservative times the US currently finds itself in? Either way, it doesn't help Resident Evil.

One of the main draws of video games is the sense of immersion they create. In the Resident Evil video games not only are you watching the lead character escape from monsters you are controlling the action and are, in a way, an active part of the story. It's this sense of participation that primarily drives games and not the sometimes shaky plot lines they showcase. Since movies are a different form of entertainment video game adaptations try to keep their features from feeling like the audience is stuck watching someone else play a video game by ratcheting up the noise and music and by making sure the camera work is extra twitchy. Resident Evil makes this same mistake, trading atmosphere for aimless action and shouting for dialogue. Something good could have been done with Resident Evil. The plot could have gone into the idiocy of creating a biological weapon so dangerous that it could easily destroy all life on Earth. Dr. Strangelove managed to wring jokes out of nuclear armageddon so there's no reason a zombie movie couldn't touch on humanity's urge to destroy itself for the sake of politics or profit. Heck, even something that was a bald-face rip-off of previous zombie movies would have been better than the rat-a-tat action found in Resident Evil. In the end Resident Evil doesn't give the audience something they couldn't find in a superior form in all the source material it borrows from.

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