IF WE must praise the Resident Evilseries for something - we need not, but we shall - it is for stretching its economic tentacles beyond enthusiasts of the fine game that spawned it. Hard though it may be to believe, many people who have never laid eyes on Evilin its X-Box or PlayStation incarnations have forked out for tickets to the films.

Lord knows why. A clumsy farrago of Mad Max, Terminator 2and George Romero's Deadfilms, the third episode comes across like the aftermath of an explosion within a teenage boy's brain. Plots are forever starting up and then not going anywhere. Milla Jovovich, the picture's bellicose lead, never says anything you couldn't imagine being said with more feeling by a Speak-Your- Weight machine. And the drab special effects are no more thrilling than yesterday's kippers.

The video game at least allowed you the opportunity to engineer your own painless death when it all got too tiresome. No such relief is available here.

If you care about the franchise, you already know what the film is about: zombies, sinister corporations, the end of the world. The only element worth noting is an impressive representation of Las Vegas after the desert has reclaimed it. Featuring half-buried ersatz versions of New York, Paris and Venice, the computer-generated image offers an evocative summation of a worldwide apocalypse to come.

If a better director than Russell Mulcahy - off the rails since Highlander - is reading this, then perhaps he or she would like to steal the idea and make a decent film out of it. DONALD CLARKE