Resident Evil (15): Preying on fears of biohazards and the shady dealings of monolithic business conglomerates, Resident Evil is the eponymous film version of the popular video game.

Sometime in the future, the Umbrella Corporation is the largest provider of household medical products; behind the public faade, it is secretly engaged in testing the dangerous T-Virus. When a sample is stolen from the lab, an underground complex called The Hive, the workers there are gassed en masse to prevent contamination - and to hush up the scandal.

Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element) stars as Alice, a security agent who must lead a team of commandos into The Hive and figure out what went wrong. Their task is hindered by the meddling intervention of a wayward computer and the gruesome effects of the virus - far more potent than the average flu germ.

So potent, in fact, it has the ability to raise the dead. Even when they've finished the job, a superhuman killer called The Licker is still at large.

Director and writer Paul W. S. Anderson has created more than a slick special effects extravaganza. For all its computer animation, Resident Evil is, like the Alien series, a classic horror flick set in the near future.

However, toying with the genre also comes with a price. The acting is atrocious, the soundtrack is as irritating as fingernails on a blackboard and the jargon-heavy dialogue is outright nonsense. Some scenes are positively naff, such as when Jovovich wakes up on the shower floor with her hair perfectly coifed. And there is one lingering question: If the zombies are all flesh-hungry cannibals, why don't they eat each other?

A terrifying, mess-your-pants techno thriller with a guaranteed sequel, Resident Evil is Night of the Living Dead for a new generation. But maybe the premise on which the film is based is scarier than the zombies themselves.

July 9, 2002 17:00