In the future, The Umbrella Corporation is a huge powerful company that does research to find cures for disease, etc., and their products are used in every home.  The Corporation also has a secret installation in Raccoon City, called The Hive, which is several miles underground.  Here, they do a different type of research... viruses, biological warfare, military research!

The facility is controlled by an Artificial Intelligence called The Red Queen.  One day, someone steals one of the viruses from the facility, and also releases some of it into the air.  Suddenly, the Red Queen turns totally psycho, and kills off everyone in the Hive!

We are then introduced to the character of Alice (Milla Jovovich), who wakes up in a luxurious mansion, with a severe case of memory loss.  Soon, a group of soldiers barges into the mansion, and they take Alice and her "husband" (who also has amnesia) to The Hive (the mansion was a secret entrance into the facility).

When they reach The Hive, they find something very nasty besides the psycho computer - undead zombies, reanimated by the virus!  To top it all off, the entire facility will be sealed off in a few hours, so they better find a way to get out of there alive!

This movie was a lot of fun.  Director Paul Anderson kept the scares coming in a constant supply more or less, and that "Licker" mutant creature was one of the most terrifying monsters I've ever seen in a movie.  The movie was also made very stylishly, with lots of hi-tech looking areas in the facility.  I also liked the music score by Marco Beltrami and Marilyn Manson (heh) - it added that bit of energy to the movie and I think it made several scenes go that much faster.  The absolute best part of this movie (in fact, I think it's one of the coolest scenes I've seen in any movie) though, was the scene with the GRID LASERS!  In my opinion this is more an action movie than a horror movie (the horror part mostly consists of scares that won't affect you after you come out of the theatre), and a well done one at that.

The movie isn't the best in terms of characters (I actually didn't even remember all the names of the characters), and the plot is sort of minimal, but it's okay for a movie based on a video game.  I've never played the game(s) but according to what I read, this movie is actually a sort of prequel to the game's story, and it does have a setup for the sequel, Resident Evil: Nemesis at the end (oh, I see it now!).  But of course, I wouldn't bother about things like plot and characters too much in a movie like this.

The acting was okay I guess, there wasn't actually much of it necessary!  The only real complaint I had about this movie was that they seemed to have toned down the gore (am I the only one who thinks that the movie had too little gore?).  I don't know whether that was intended or not, but I thought the movie could have used more icky stuff and bloodier zombies.  Probably this was another victim of "keep-in-the-gore-and-you-won't-get-an-R-rating" syndrome, unfortunately, like the director's earlier Event Horizon.  Also, the scenes with Milla Jovovich using martial arts-like skills to kick zombie dogs in the face looked cool, but I would have preferred a more serious and creepy approach to the entire thing.

But at the end of it all I must say I had a really good time at this movie (ending was very cool too) and I am looking forward to the sequel!  I like director Paul Anderson's movies (my favourite being the aforementioned Event Horizon), and I think he did a very good job with this movie version of a game.  I wish the Doom movie (if it ever gets made) would get a treatment like this!

Wow, those lasers!

Running Time: 100 minutes | Country: US | Genre: Horror/Action