Resident Evil
	Rated R
	Runtime: 1hr 40min
	Starring: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, James Purefoy, Martin Crewes
	MFG Rating: 2/5

Resident Evil is the latest movie to be released based on a popular video game. Let me state upfront that I have not played this particular game, but I do not think being a fan of the game could've possibly improved my enjoyment of this film. Suffice to say you're not going to be hearing much about this one at the Oscars.

There isn't much story here. Basically, there's about as much storyline as one might expect in a video game. Imagine that! Unfortunately when moving a game to the big screen, one generally expects the story and characters to get fleshed out a bit. It just doesn't happen here. The general idea is that this is set in the 21st Century where a big evil company is doing naughty things such as DNA manipulation and virus generation in the name of top secret military research. The virus gets loose, and a computer controlling the secret underground society goes haywire. And that's just about enough setup to send in a special ops response team and give them some flesh eating zombies and other mutating creatures to shoot. The movie has a whole "Night of the Living Dead" thing going.

When I say there's no character development, I'm not kidding. The movie stars Milla Jovovich, and we never even find out her name. I guess they assume we know it from the game. I must say she's looking good here. She's bulked up a bit since The Fifth Element and looks much much better. We do catch some of the other character's names, but unfortunately the dialog is limited to exclamations, barking commands, etc. This movie really does just kinda start in the middle of the action like a video game and ends without closure. The prospect of a sequel is scary because I do not want to have to sit through it and review it!

Other than a bit of eye candy, there's just not much to this movie. Resident Evil might be worth screening on DVD if you're into horror and shoot-em-up type action. But there's no reason to go out of your way to catch it on the big screen, and somehow I do not think it will be in theaters more than a couple of weeks anyway. We give it 2 stars, and we're being generous.

- Billy Bob