(by Grandma Sick-Boy)

A few weeks ago, while Ethel and I were waiting for Matlock to come on, we stumbled on CNN, which was showing an awful demonstration in Iran.  The sand-people in that G-dforsaken country were upset Our George lumped them together with the monsters in Iraq and North Korea.  Anyway, these terrorists were burning effigies and holding signs, one of which said, "President Evil," and I thought, "What a great way to get free advertising for an upcoming Hollywood blockbuster!"

The movie, it turns out, is called Resident Evil, so the clever man with the sign wasn't really on Sony's payroll.  That lazy grandson of mine tells me the movie was based on one of the very video games responsible for rotting his puny brain.  A movie based on a game – whoever heard of such a thing?  I hope they don't make one about Kick the Can because that would be pretty boring.  I don't really want to see Parcheesi: The Movie any time soon, either.  Next thing you know, they'll be trying to tell us driving around in a circle is a sport.

The movie is about a huge company called the Umbrella Corporation, which is the Microsoft of the future, I guess. They control everything but make most of their money by researching bad things like biological weapons and other evil-scientist stuff.  One day, somebody purposely opens up something called the T-virus, which works its way into the ventilation system and kills everybody in the top-secret underground test facility known as The Hive (it's located underneath Raccoon City, which presumably has a Raccoon Mayor – what kind of crazy experiments were they doing down there?).

A group of soldier types are sent in to take care of the situation.  They're initially shocked by the piles and piles of dead bodies, which reminded me of the opening scenes of The Stand, but become even more surprised when the dead bodies get up and look at them with a very hungry gleam in their eyes. That's right – the T-Virus turns people into zombies, which makes me wonder what value it could possibly have to anyone? Who would want their friends or enemies to become zombies? Maybe develop something to keep zombies away, but not something to create them.

The main character is played by supermodel Milli Vanilli, who, like that nice boy from Memento, doesn't remember anything when the movie starts.  She has flashbacks that make us all think she's the one responsible for the spread of the virus.  Also, there is a little girl in The Hive who doesn't like the soldier people.  Even though she's young, her name is Red Queen, but I think maybe she just read Alice in Wonderland and decided to start calling herself by that name.  It was my favorite book when I was that age, so I know all about that, thank you very much.

The movie has a lot of men who all look the same and this one girl (her name is Rachel Rodrigues) who always scowls and must be paid by the number of times she lowers her head and tries to see through the top of it.  Mostly, the movie is filled with scenes where the soldier people argue until somebody says, "What's that sound?," and then some horrible monster comes out and tries to eat them.

I was surprised when the credits rolled and I learned this movie was written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who also made Magnolia and The Boy With the Big Weiner.  This is a totally different movie, so if you go expecting to see some really big weiners, you might be disappointed.  Ethel actually wound up leaving about 20 minutes after it started.

1:40 -

for strong sci-fi/horror violence, language and sexuality/nudity