RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Mischa Redfern I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

The Movie Diorama No one could've predicted that this was going to be the start of something massive. Regarded by many as the ultimate guilty pleasure series, this first instalment gives us zombies, a badass female protagonist and an utterly convoluted plot. A woman simply known as "Alice" wakes up unable to recall her memories. A specialised team take her and infiltrate 'The Hive' which has entered a state of lockdown. Why? Viral breakout obviously. The infamous T-Virus. Fans of Capcom's survival horror games of the same name, will be immensely disappointed. There's no horror, there's limited survival and replicates nothing from the first game. It's simply taken the name and turned into something else. Fortunately, whilst I've played the game and discount myself as a fanboy, I honestly don't mind the lack of replication. Call it a film reinvention as you will. Doesn't stop it from being mediocre though. Paul W.S. Anderson directs what looks like a B-Movie. Cringeworthy dialogue, although with some damn good one liners from the badass Michelle Rodriguez, terrible and dated effects that are incorporated in a plot that finds itself incredibly confused. What seems like a simple infiltration turns out to be a mess fuelled by patchy flashbacks and exposition. Milla Jovovich definitely transforms herself and you can start to see her action stardom manifest. There is an almighty personality switch where her timid and quiet self transforms into the ultimate badass b**** in town. She does not give a flip what you think. She kicks a zombie dog in the face for Christ's sake! I appreciate the usage of props and makeup, but simple aesthetics does not create a good film. Mediocrity at its finest. A sentence I'll be saying consistently in these reviews...

swilliky The video game adaptation sparks a franchise that has soldiered for five sequels. The first film begins with the hive of the Umbrella Corp under a lockdown as a virus spreads through the facility. Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes up with a blurry memory inside a mansion. She encounters Matt (Eric Mabius) who claims to be part of the police force when they are captured by a military team. The leader of the team is One (Colin Salmon) who is taking them from the mansion deep underground to stop the evil rogue AI, the Red Queen, beneath Raccoon City. Alice also has memories of being married to Spence (James Purefoy). She teams up with Rain (Michelle Rodriguez) after most of the team is eliminated by a laser beam hallway. The movie turns into a typical zombie movie from that point on with cheap special effects and over the top action common for a movie directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Audiences have been spoiled with zombie gore since this film was released and this is nowhere near one of the top in this subgenre of horror. The special effects are pretty flimsy and dated too. Check out more of this review and others at swilliky.com

jtindahouse I was never really into video games growing up, and I'm still not today. So a series like 'Resident Evil' just completely passed over my radar. With the 'Final Chapter' coming out shortly though I decided to go back and review the series to see what I think of it. Going back 14 years when it comes to a CGI heavy film can be a dodgy thing to do. Admittedly, there is a noticeable difference compared to the quality being produced today, but it's certainly not distractingly bad. I quite like films that are set in a confined space with the characters having to either work their way to the centre, or find a way out. This is one of those films and most aspects of it are done fairly well. The one element (that happened to be probably the biggest of them all sadly) that didn't work was the zombies. Zombies are simply not scary, not visually impressive and not entertaining. They're still better than vampires, but they are not a strong thing to have as a heavy component of your film. Having never played the game I can't confirm how close this is in terms of being true to it. I suspect though that it's pretty close. A lot of scenes feel like they're straight from a game and you can even imagine yourself having to pass the level that the characters are currently on. Milla Jovovich plays the lead role well, but I hope in the sequels she evolves a lot. At times in this one she felt like just another member of the squad, and certainly not the main character. People to this day say are still waiting for a great video game adaption to come out. 'Resident Evil' is a solid film, but it's certainly far from being great.

zardoz-13 "Mortal Combat" director Paul W.S. Anderson's first entry in the "Resident Evil" franchise is basically a low-budget zombie munch-fest based on the popular Capcom video game that spawned the series. This $ 30-million horror chiller relies on several narrative devices to fuel its adrenalin-laced antics. First, the heroine suffers from amnesia as she struggles to remember what she was doing in the ultra-secret, high-tech, subterranean laboratory of the Umbrella Corporation where scientists have been conducting research and development on experimental viruses for military usage. Second, from the moment that the rescue team arrives and collects Alice (Milla Jovovich of "The Fifth Element"), Matt (Eric Mabius of "Cruel Intentions"), and Spence (James Purefoy of "Solomon Kane"), they have an hour to penetrate the Hive, carry out their mission, and exit the complex before it seals itself shut. Third, the entire experience occurs in a claustrophobic setting that accentuates the suspense after our heroes encounter a zombie horde. Everybody earning a paycheck in the Hive dies when a traitor smashes a lethal t-virus container that shuts down the facility and winds up spreading death. Fourth, the ravenous undead are not the only adversaries that our heroes must contend with; zombie Dobermanns threaten them as well as a mysteriously mutated monster with a long, elastic tongue and razor-sharp claws that can penetrate a train. Believe it or not, Anderson displays some discretion in some of the greatest gut-churning scenes. When a group is trapped inside an elevator, one woman squeezes her head through an opening and realizes too late as do her companions that she is going to be decapitated when the elevator goes upward and smashes her head. The audience, especially those that have played the Capcom game, know that you have to put a bullet in a zombie's head to kill it. Unfortunately, our stalwart heroes aren't privy to this life-saving information. Eventually, the supercomputer that regulates the Hive and takes the holographic form of an adolescent female becomes another of our heroes' adversaries.As the plot unfolds, Alice regains her memory in bits and pieces and realizes that she was the individual who had decided to expose the Umbrella Corporation. All of the laboratory technicians in the Hive perish tragically through no fault of their own because one mysterious individual sabotaged the Hive. These employees come back to life as zombies that live only to eat. These zombies are traditional "Night of the Living Dead" shambling walkers. The close quarters inside the Hive as well as the booby-traps that our heroes must navigate to avoid constitutes a primary form of suspense. At one point, our desperate heroes clamber atop the air condition ducts dangling by wires from the ceiling to escape the zombies milling about beneath them. One of the more memorable scenes takes place before this one when the rescue team arrives in a hallway that has been booby-trapped with the equivalent of a cheese grater made up of lasers to slice up the rescue team as they scramble to avoid them. Our heroine Alice—dressed in a skimpy red dress—contends with hunger Dobermanns in one of the strongest scenes in the film. Just when she thinks that she had taken care of these menacing dogs, she runs into others. Before long, even these canines mutilate undead dogs and attack Milia, but she knows how to contend with them."Resident Evil" gets the franchise off to a fitting start when our hero arrives by train.