After a chilling first 10 minutes in which a facility filled with technicians is wiped out by a deadly virus as the doors lock and no one is allowed to escape, Screen Gems' sci-fi screamer "Resident Evil" turns into a generic bloodbath that often becomes laughably unbearable when it isn't merely offensive. From its specious title to its cast of actors in search of decent dialogue to go with the showers of guts and gore they endure, "Evil" will make a minor impact at the boxoffice and then join the untold numbers of similar abattoir-themed videos or DVDs produced in the past decade. Written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson from a story he co-wrote with Alan McElroy, "Resident Evil" is based on a Capcom computer game series and was filmed mostly in Berlin.

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