Resident Evil <\/p>\n
\ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d7 <\/p>\n
Director: Zach Cregger<\/p>\n
Cert: 16<\/p>\n
Starring: Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter Hauser<\/p>\n
Running Time: 1 hr 33 mins<\/p>\n
After critical success with Barbarian<\/a> and Weapons<\/a> (winner of an actual Oscar) it seemed odd that Zach Cregger<\/a>, new horror master, would move on to reboot the creakiest of video-game adaptations. It is fully 23 years since Paul WS Anderson directed the first of many cacophonous Resident Evil films. When the zombie game first landed, Bill Clinton was still in his first term as US president. Undead, indeed.<\/p>\n One could imagine Cregger attempting some sprawling, borderline-pretentious origin story, but, no fool, he has taken an altogether more economic route. Here is a hilarious, fast-moving, self-aware action romp that wastes not one of its admirably disgusting 90 minutes. The director has mentioned Sam Raimi<\/a>\u2019s Evil Dead II as an influence, and, sure enough, this Resident Evil occasionally suggests Buster Keaton in hell.<\/p>\n Austin Abrams, who had a role in Weapons, plays young Bryan, a medical courier transporting a mysterious package through snowy passes to a research facility in Racoon City. Out of nowhere, as he is chatting on the phone to his girlfriend, an underdressed woman emerges from the woods to be splattered by his speeding vehicle. Somehow she survives (as you hardly need to be told), and, now with a trauma victim onboard, Bryan continues towards the health facility.<\/p>\n Yes, snafus in the lab have resulted in a zombie infestation of the most horrid stripe. The good news is that Cregger and his team care little for the \u201clore\u201d behind all this. About halfway through, a hilariously self-serving Paul Walter Hauser<\/a> turns up to rattle through some hooey about the sinister Umbrella Corporation, but the film\u2019s priorities are gore, momentum, set-piece invention and self-aware humour.<\/p>\n As regards the latter, the script has fun riffing on gamer culture without overdoing nudges or winks. \u201cI\u2019ve only used a gun in video games,\u201d Bryan says after struggling with another safety catch. An excellent running joke references the number of padlocks in Resident Evil while arguing that such things may not be quite so easy to shoot off as the games suggest.<\/p>\n