By GRAHAM REID
(Herald rating: * * * )
Based on the best-selling computer game of the same name, this eye-engaging but ultimately predictable flesh-eater flick raises one urgent question: how come you can't kill zombies but they seem remarkably easy to knock out?
And the team of commandos (with, as expected,
a traitor in their midst) which has to enter the Hive - a high-tech underground facility run by the evil Umbrella Corporation - certainly gets to knock out a few, blast the heads off others and generally indulge in a splatterfest of the old style. Excellent, even when you know to "look out behind you!"
This being the 21st century, however, the story, such as it is, comes with contemporary messages. Traditionally zombies just rose from the grave and caused headaches and repair bills for people trapped in empty wooden houses, but here the once shimmering underground facility has been host to some biogenetic tampering and a rogue virus has got loose. The Red Queen, the supercomputer in charge, has sealed the facility but another virus is reanimating the dead.
So Alice (the underdressed Jovovich), Rain (the over-acting Rodriguez, who does everything through dark, hooded eyes) and crew enter the now battered and blood-splattered corridors and laboratories to grapple with the unleashed beasts, poor plumbing and very bad dialogue.
Writer/director Anderson (who cut his teeth on Mortal Kombat, also based on a videogame) soaks the screen in images from previous films, notably The Matrix (everyone can run around walls these days, huh?) with a touch of 2001. It's not enough that the human workers have now joined the undead but, Alien-like, there is the Licker, a beast that can mutate after eating fresh DNA. And it just gets bigger and its tongue longer.
So Resident Evil plots a well-travelled path, does it with an appropriately punishing soundtrack, and lets loose the zombie dogs, which are by far the most scary thing about this whole bleeding thing.
Cast: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Running time: 101 mins
Rating: R16 (contains horror scenes and violence)
Screening: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas
