Evil abounds with zombies, cute heroes

The plot of Resident Evil takes place in the Hive, a secret underground research facility that is run by the Umbrella Corporation, the world's most influential company. When an artificial super-intelligence computer goes homicidal and kills all of the employees, Umbrella sends in a crack team of "soldiers" to figure out what went wrong and rescue any survivors. Throw into the mix two guardians, living in the mansion above the entrance to the Hive, who have lost their memories. The team has one hour to deactivate the queen, rescue any survivors and get out before the Hive closes permanently. Sounds like a simple mission, right? Unfortunately, all of the now dead employees of the Hive have been infected with the T-Virus, which turns them into flesh-eating zombies. The only way to kill a zombie is to sever the spinal cord or do severe damage to the head, but the team only learns this after wasting a lot of ammunition shooting zombies in the torso. As the two guardians slowly begin to regain the memory of their defensive training, they kill a lot of zombies and try to solve the riddle of the Queen's actions. Was there a plot to sabotage Umbrella? Who is the saboteur? Evil is more surprising than scary. The zombies appear suddenly and the actors gasp, which makes audience members gasp. Nevertheless, the movie is a lot of fun. Based on the popular Playstation series, the movie is close enough to the game to satisfy most game players. Audience member must remember that the words "based on" have a very loose definition in Hollywood. The film is visually impressive. The zombies look good, and the zombie fighting Milla Jovavich, wearing a red dress slit up to here and a little black shirt the size of a headband, looks good. Eric Mabius, the other guardian, looks good in that sweet nice guy way, especially after he gives Jovavich his leather jacket because she is hardly wearing a shirt. Michelle Rodriguez looks good carrying a gun, although her face rarely changed its expression throughout the film. It was always twisted with this look of disgust/pain/annoyance. The movie is definitely worth seeing, especially for those who enjoy watching representations of computer generated female characters kicking things. Or shooting things, as they do that, too. Resident Evil is now showing at Carmike Wynnsong 16, Halls Cinema 7, Farragut Towne Square and Knoxville Center. Rating: B+