Now, is there an excuse for a horrendous looking creature via CGI? Or maybe some truly useless characters with weak (at best) dialogue? No, I can't say there is.

I've never played any of the games, but I can certainly see where this story lends itself to the video game medium. In this case, it gives the viewer a sense of what a first person shooter game with this story would feel like. But there's something to be said about a throwback action-horror taking place in one confined space. Resident Evil is actually a pretty serious film, people are dying left and right, and the world is on the brink of an apocalypse. In fact, one can make the argument that Alice is a more likable character than Selene is in Underworld.Īs I've said a lot recently, there's nothing wrong with a mindless action adventure if it doesn't take itself too seriously. I did, however, find Alice to be compelling, as long as the sequels do more to expand her history and explain how she became an absolute bada**. Knowing where most zombie flicks go, there's really no use to getting attached to secondary characters when you know their deaths are all but guaranteed. Much like the Underworld franchise, I honestly don't care about any of the supporting characters. But in the instances that the survivors, led by Alice (Milla Jovovich), are scrambling through rooms doing anything to survive CGI creatures and flesh eating zombies, Resident Evil is pure guilty pleasure. When the film takes twists and turns that are supposed to surprise you, when in fact, they feel like a weak attempt at shock, it becomes overwhelmingly convoluted. Resident Evil is at its best when it pushes aside the politics of this 'secret military group' named The Umbrella, and instead is an homage to the original Alien. Resident Evil isn't necessarily the exception to that rule, but it's nowhere near as awful as the genre has been.

Video game movies have been awful for decades now.

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