Surprised by the top score? Well, Alexander Witt delivers a pulse racing Rez Evil film that doesn't relent almost throughout. I'm not stating that this is one of the best films ever made, merely one of the most fun hence the high marking. The closest comparison is Len Wiseman's Underworld starring Kate Beckinsale. That was another fun action horror flick.

Witt's film is strongly directed with a variety of enjoyable set-ups and ideas. It puts Anderson's original film to shame and hey, I actually enjoyed that first entry anyway. It surprises me to read such constant negative opinions on those two adaptions, since from talking to many non-internet using "regular" folks over the last few days, I know that they enjoyed both films. Maybe some horror sites should try to chill out a bit and enjoy these films, rather than looking for faults and being so critical. It seems that nowadays, you have to be a member of the "I hate Paul Anderson" fan club if you write anything for horror websites.

There's no pompousity or pretentions here, just plain ol' fashioned fun as we watch a group of survivors try to escape the virus infected Raccoon City before the Umbrella corporation destroys it with nuclear capabilities. After Anderson's first film was criticised for not following the games more closely, he clearly took that to heart since this film's basic premise and MANY of the sequences have already featured in fmv or gameplay aspects of Capcom's franchise. Aside from Sienna Guillory's nigh on perfect portrayal of Jill Valentine, many of the sequences and locations are taken from the games themselves.

I had to chuckle somewhat when I saw a professional critic's review asking why Valentine spends the entire film wandering around in a blue tube top and miniskirt, it seemed kinda obvious to me - a) the character wears that outfit in Rez 3, and b) it makes her look very attractive. It's exciting to see gothic locations such as the church or graveyard finally making their appearances, as does Nemesis (actually the silliest creature in the entire Rez franchise). I'm not certain as to how the resurrected corpses in the graveyard became infected by the virus but hey, if it's good enough for an fmv sequence in Code Veronica, then why the hell not?

The "matrix" styled fights and bullet time effects have always made perfect sense to me since we see such fights in Code Veronica when watching the new superhuman Wesker in action and Steve Burnside jumping through a window with machine guns blazing. And whilst I won't reveal any spoilers, has anyone aside from me actually seen the ending sequence of RE Zero??? That's why the heavy criticism of martial arts or bullet time making an appearance has always confused the hell out of me - and I have seen those same criticisms voiced many times on the internet.

I wouldn't be too hard on the dialogue since that was never the strongest point of any Rez game and I must confess that I enjoyed Anderson's script and the performances anyway. Thing is, bar Steve Redfield discussing the death of his father in RE:CV, the RE dialogue has always been kind of piss-poor, these games were more about the action and the tension of surviving for hours. Also, ripping off horror films throughout the entire franchise means that any theatrical adaption will always seem like an unoriginal paint by numbers action horror. There was also some strange bizarre pleasure in wiping out critters with attractive characters which has definetly become a mainstay of Anderson's Rez scripts.

Silent Hill will actually be a much easier franchise to adapt into an intelligent film - the Silent Hill fmv sequences and storylines have always been far smarter, and a lot more haunting and abstract. But RE sure won in the action gameplay stakes. Expecting a Ben Hur type horror experience from a RE theatrical adaption doesn't make any sense - these films were bound to be pulpy and throwaway from the very offset. That doesn't stop me having a blast watching 'em though. My only real complaint with this film is that the use of the name Carlos Olivera seems rather pointless as the screen character has absolutely nothing in common with his video game counterpart.

I lost count of the amount of ideas or sequences that had been lifted directly or very closely adapted from the games - the obvious highlight of which was the almost shot for shot reproduction of the Code Veronica intro fmv when Claire Redfield was caught infiltrating an Umbrella corporation building. Alexander Witt's debut feature is highly recommended to all the hardcore Resident Evil fans and to folks who don't take their films too seriously. Watching this was the most fun I've had since I checked out Spiderman 2. Congrats to all involved! Let's hope that we see a Tyrant in Rez Evil 3.