Resident Evil

But if you want a decent sci-fi horror with nerve-shredding tension and characters to match, then steer well clear of this which provides nothing more than cosmetic thrills on an outrageous level.

It's a mish-mash of all the horrors you've seen before. The Evil Dead, Night of the Living Dead, The Shining all seem to have been lifted or imitated and the only heart in the film is probably the one that regularly gets splattered by some evil spirit.

Yet there are plenty of jumpy moments and there is something happening on screen most of the time. But that has to be expected because it's based on a wildly popular computer game.

Everyone should be sceptical when a famous computer game is used as a licence to print money on the big screen. It seems that nothing is safe from the giant, grubby claws of commerce. Cartoons (Scooby Doo), computer games, books, TV shows and a whole list of others get made into big-budget pictures. Where are the original ideas?

Resident Evil, just like Lara Croft, is another waste of time. It may be watchable but it always looks and feels like a computer game because there is no sense that the world up on screen actually exists.

But it is better than Lara Croft because there are more shocks and surprises although the rest is close to being an outrageous joke.

Milla Jovovich plays Alice, a commando who is asked to investigate something terrible lurking in the Hive, which is an underground genetic research facility.

A deadly virus outbreak occurs and The Red Queen, which is the supercomputer that controls the Hive, shuts down the whole facility killing all the trapped employees.

Alice must isolate the virus but finds that all the staff actually may not be dead. They are now the ravenous undead, looking to make their mark on fellow humans with bites, scratches or just outright terror.

Director Paul Anderson has been down this road before in Event Horizon and that was much tighter and scarier than this pop-horror which seems to enjoy blasting our senses with a soundtrack when it should be creating a sense of fear or menace.

When Alice has to go through the deadly maze, we may get the odd jolt but we're not really bothered if she gets chopped up into little pieces. The others do.

Some of the vile creatures are pretty scary, a mutant dog, in particular, may put you off taking your dog for a walk for a few mornings.

But, ultimately, the less written about this film the better. It's well-made and glossy but utterly soulless. The special effects are impressive and the set design is thought-provoking, but the humans are boring, one-dimensional and a total switch-off.

Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element, Joan of Arc) is a fine actress, but isn't it strange how there seem to be more action heroines linked to computer games than many other films. Where are the other women, apart from Lara Croft and Alice, saving the world in Hollywood films? Maybe it's something to do with geeky young boy's and their fantasies. Watch them flock to this one.