When you see the movie trailer, you can't wait to see this film. When you see this film, you'll wish you stopped at the trailer.
Aside from the outstanding visuals, effects and landscapes, the awesome cast was wasted on an infantile convoluted screenplay riddled with plot and technical issues. There's hardly any coherent continuity in the writing, and the ridiculous long dragged out and unnecessary scenes made the 103 minute runtime feel over 3 hours long. I don't mind mindless entertainment, but when I feel a 5th grader could've come up with a better balanced script, the entertainment becomes annoying.
Writer, producer and director of the Resident Evil franchise Paul W. S. Anderson, also cast his wife Milla Jovovich, as well as Tony Jaa and Ron Perlman. As a seasoned filmmaker, his directing was horrible. The fighting action scenes had the worst and amateurish choreography I've seen in a long time. I feel bad for Tony Jaa to have this nonsense on his resume. Many scenes could've been cut down and/or omitted so the runtime be no more than 85-90 mins, as that's all this story - if you can even call it that, would be able to fill.
Anderson's writing was horrid, as mentioned above, and my heading "When you're on a bad acid trip at 8, but need to hand in your screenplay at 9" is the most realistic for this meme. I'm a fan of the Resident Evil franchise, but I'm not sure how anyone who read Anderson's script could've said "this is awesome, let's start filming!". It's a shame because I know this had a big budget, and unfortunately it would've been better served donated to some cause instead of this garbage. It's a very generous 5/10 from me, all going to the visuals and the cast, who I feel sorry for. If you want to have any enjoyment with this one, throw on your favorite up-beat album on the stereo, and play this film muted as its music video.
