Paul Greenwood reviews

• Cert:
• Running time: 100 minutes
• Year: 2002
• Released: 12th July 2002
• Widescreen Ratio: 1.85:1
• Decibel Level: Unhealthy
• Rating: 2/10

Director:

Paul Anderson (Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon, Soldier)

Cast:

Alice: Milla Jovovich
Rain Ocampo: Michelle Rodriguez
Matt Addison: Eric Mabius
Spencer Parks: James Purefoy
Chad Kaplan: Martin Crewes
J.D. Salinas: Pasquale Aleardi
James 'One' Shade: Colin Salmon
Dr Lisa Addison: Heike Makatsch

Wanted: Scantily clad bimbette to slink down dark hallways and fight undead monsters. Should be able to work on own initiative. Regular breaks (for incomprehensible plot exposition). Non-smoker preferred. Must have own crotch length cocktail dress.

With a recruitment poster like that, how could this film fail? The answer: allow Paul Anderson to direct it. The artiste who brought us the excruciating Soldier returns with this plotless abomination based on the popular video game. If that fact alone is not enough of a reason to avoid seeing this, you obviously didn't catch Tomb Raider.

It starts promisingly enough with a tense and well staged prologue in which the employees of a huge global corporation named Umbrella are trapped inside their underground office network, The Hive. The reason for this? Unbeknownst to most of their employees, Umbrella are involved in genetic modification and viral experimentation, so when someone releases the deadly "T-Virus" into the environment, the computer that controls The Hive locks all the doors and shuts up shop. Cue bad ass soldier types to the rescue.

Now, I'm a fan of the game, particularly the atmosphere it manages to create and this atmosphere is evident in some early scenes, full of marbled mansion rooms and ornate statues. We're introduced to Jovovich's character and for a moment or two it looks like the format of the game is going to be adopted, with puzzle solving and survival skills to the fore, but this is quickly abandoned in favour of running down dank corridors, being chased by mutant rottweilers and zombified accountants. There is one clever scene involving negotiating a deadly laser infested room which is a delightfully fiendish concoction, but it only serves to annoy the audience by making them wish they were watching the far superior Cube instead.

Call me a sentimental fool but, if you ask me, zombie movies have two basic, fundamental requirements: zombies munching people real good and people hacking up zombies even gooder. Not this film though, oh no. Not one jugular ruptures, not one bullet hits a blood squib, not one decapitation is shown on-screen. Well, there is one, but it happens after the fact and it looked like CGI. What's the point? What this movie lacks is a sense of its own ridiculousness that made something like Dog Soldiers so much fun.

Anderson equates headache inducing heavy metal music with excitement and mistakes ear-splitting sound effects for shocks, which he invariably telegraphs a week in advance. On the plus side, Jovovich's outfits range from the skimpy to the nonexistent. When we first see her she's wearing a shower curtain; towards the end she's in some sort of bib/apron ensemble. Oh, and her acting is decent enough. Rodriguez's don't-fuck-with-me tough girl scowl becomes tiresome after the 17th or 18th time, while the other nameless, faceless participants merely make up the numbers.