There was never a "why" to the transformation of "Resident Evil" from video game to feature film. With 16 million copies of its four games sold worldwide, it was inevitable that "Resident Evil" would join "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," "Street Fighter" and "Super Mario Brothers" as Hollywood desperately tries to tap into one of its main competitors.
In Paul Anderson's second effort in the genre (he previously directed "Mortal Kombat," which grossed more than $150 million), there are necessarily game reference points, including such popular zombie characters as the Zombie Dogs and the Licker. It also includes the game's setting - the Hive, a secret lab-mansion run by a bioengineering conglomerate conducting unethical genetic experiments. Its security is regulated by a paranoid AI computer called the Red Queen, which early on locks down the Hive and gases all the little worker bees to halt the spread of an experimental virus.
But don't bet on all those dead workers staying dead too long after the arrival of a SWAT team led by One (Colin Salmon) and Rain (Michelle Rodriguez). Sent to investigate, they're accompanied by Alice (Milla Jovovich as a feisty amnesiac with "Memento"-style flashbacks), Matt (Eric Mabius) and several others who barely get lines before their dispatch.
These are all characters not found in the game. More familiar are the dead workers who, thanks to that experimental virus, reappear as flesh-eating zombie hordes. Their creator is George A. Romero, the writer-director of the "Living Dead" trilogy who was an acknowledged inspiration to the game's designers and who was briefly attached to the film project. Romero wrote the book on undead etiquette - or is that eat-iquette? - and Anderson adds little to the genre. Actually, he borrows copiously from the claustrophobic environment of Romero's "Dawn of the Dead," subbing the Hive for the shopping mall.
Once the zombie jamboree begins, matters devolve to basic game status: The zombies have that need to feed, while the SWAT team members try desperately to avoid becoming unhappy meals. Anderson relies less on digital effects than old-fashioned prosthetic makeup and animatronics. The hellhounds on Alice's trail are a decent combination, while the shape-shifting Licker can be traced back to Ridley Scott's "Alien" (as can the inevitable climactic confrontation). The best effect is a lethal slice-and-dice laser corridor, but Anderson pulls up short, and then back, rather than showing what gruesome gamers were probably hoping for more of.
As Alice, Jovovich is stuck in a clumsily revealing dress for most of the film. As for her kickin'-zombie-ass partner, Rodriguez ("Girlfight") is slipping toward being typecast with her pugnacious pout 'n' scowl. The lab setting is futuristic in the manner of Anderson's own earlier movies "Soldier" and "Event Horizon," and the soundtrack by Marco Beltrami and Marilyn Manson is as noisy and unrelenting as you'd expect. But, in the end, it all looks and plays like a $40 million version of a game you're more likely to enjoy on a computer.
Resident Evil (R-100 minutes) contains strong sci-fi/horror violence, adult language and brief nudity.
