Milla Jovovich dons leather boots and a cocktail dress to fight a zombie infestation in 2002's Resident Evil or, as it's known in Japan, Biohazard because "evil" doesn't translate well to Japanese. I'd seen the beginning of the movie years ago and stopped because it seemed lousy but I stuck with it this time because I've become a more generous viewer. It's not so bad once you get used to the fact that it's really bad. By which I mean, if you look at it as watching someone else playing a video game rather than a good, visceral depiction of what it might be like if hordes of walking dead took over an underground lab, you can enjoy it. At least as much as you can enjoy watching someone else play a video game. A lot of people do, there're lots of playthrough videos on YouTube, after all.
Director Paul W.S. Anderson shoots the underground facility with consistent, even lighting and liberally employs some of the worst cgi in cinema history. It is, generally, a very uncinematic film. Season one Buffy the Vampire Slayer felt more cinematic. Resident Evil is all soundstages with basic lighting, camera angles, and compositions. But to Anderson's credit, he doesn't waste time. We get the lab outbreak after introducing a few characters to humanise the place, then Alice (Jovovich) wakes up in a shower with amnesia shortly before elite shock troops break in and take her and her possible amnesiac husband underground. Making her an amnesiac really helps capture the feeling of a video game because we all start video games usually knowing next to nothing about what we're jumping right into or about our own character.
It can be quite fun, again in a very video game kind of way. I enjoyed the security lasers that cut people up. The zombie dogs, though fake looking, were still a cool idea, presumably imported from the games which I never played. Jovovich gives a good performance and was game for the old pulp convention of heroines being scantily clad for progressively insensible reasons. She even gets a creatively cut-up hospital gown, a nod to her claim to fame from Fifth Element. The film also has young James Purefoy and Michelle Rodriguez ably performing in supporting roles.
Resident Evil/Biohazard is available on Amazon Prime in Japan.
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