Film Review: Resident Evil 5

WARNING: there is a spoilery bit at the end of this review, but other than that, if you want a good and honest review of a film without spoilers then this is the one for you.

I have just got back from watching the latest in the series of zombie apocalypse type films that go by the name of Resident Evil.

I will start this review by letting you I give a six out of ten. (as usual)

Here is why:

The film is in 3D. I am not a big fan of 3D films.

A Zombie Gnome - Not seen in the film

At some point in the pre-production I am sure there is a conversation that goes a little bit like this:

 “We must have at least 17 shots of something being flung toward the screen in super slo-mo because we have paid a ton of cash for this 3D camera and I’ll be a monkeys uncle if we don’t let everyone know how cool we are.”  Says the director/producer.

“fair enough boss.” Replies every nodding yes man in the room.

And so the script writers are forced fed super strength coffee and red bull mixers while they work furiously trying to work out how this 19^th century love story can viable have a load of bullets and an exploding car swimming toward the viewers eyeballs.

Resident evil didn’t have this problem as everyone knows, where there are zombies there are always 

ALWAYS flaming cars and lots and lots of bullets zipping around toward the camera.

That said, the script is bloody awful. The best lines include:

Something for the blokes...

“You are making a mistake”

“get out of my way”

To ensure this post remains spoiler free I will not reveal who is in who’s way and who is making a mistake. To be honest I’m not sure why this piece of dialogue sticks in my head as other parts such as – “I’m going to get you” and “good luck with that.” Will not win anybody any Oscars.

All the women wear tight fitting ill-informed dresses for fighting and running (it’s no wonder they always fall over then they are on the run)

All the men have long hair and/or too many muscles than is good for them.

Nobody has a back story even the people who have been in the previous movies and were killed off in glorious Technicolor.

... And something for the ladies.

But none of this matters. When it comes to the Resident Evil franchise none of us walk into the cinema expecting to have our philosophical muscles flexed. We want lots of guns, explosions, gravity defying back flips. On this count the film delivers.

On any other level you could possibly conceive – it doesn’t.

SPOLIERY BIT:

The first ten minutes are a re-cap of the previous 8 films, it’s got her off of the third film, him from the fourth and the other one from the first one and the baddie form the first, second and third films…um… and the fourth.

A Cryptic Clue for those that like cryptic clues.

It was a bit like one of those episodes they used to do on friends when they had run out of ideas and just did a recap.

That is why this film gets a six.