After surviving the nightmare inside Umbrella's underground facility called the Hive. Alice (Milla Jovovich) is captured by a group of scientist, but later escapes to see Raccoon City completely turned upside down. The citizens are under attack by the living dead, who are rampaging through the streets, breaking through barricades, and devouring whoever they come across. A small group lead by a police officer named Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) are trying to do their best to survive the terror. -summary
I remember coming into this one with very low hopes after the last movie. Even though I enjoyed several films by Paul W.S. Anderson, most notably his game to movie adaptation of Mortal Kombat. I really didn't want him coming anywhere near this movie since he failed with the last film on two fronts; 1) It appeared as if he never came across the video game even by accident. 2) He completely botched the action scenes as well. Based on the video game by capcom, Resident Evil: Apocalypse directed by Alexander Witt was a small step in the right direction; it's a direct sequel that features better action scenes and most notably, it actually follows some events of the game and features characters as well. It combines events from Resident Evil 2 & 3.
I never liked the idea of introducing Alice as the main protagonist to Resident Evil, no matter how bad ass she is. Therefore, it was a welcome treat seeing the original true heroine of the series Jill, and I don't know about others, but I find her to be far better looking than Alice, and sexy as hell with everything she does. I enjoyed the make up and Guillory looks like Jill in every way, it's almost as if she was born to be her. I also liked the look for the walking biological monster Nemesis, and his mannerisms were lifted straight from the game. It appears that Witt was attempting to give something to the fans, where as Anderson gave almost nothing to the fans.
The action scenes are a lot better this time around, with some cool shoot outs and even hand to hand. Now I have to be honest and admit that the over the top action scenes took awhile to grow on me, since the video game focused solely on destroying zombies with heavy firepower. But at least the battles were entertaining enough for me to ignore this mishap. The special effects are pretty good, and the licker monsters who battle with these very long tongues were a good addition. On the negative side, once again, the gore effects are very weak, and as a result, this feels more like a full-fledge action movie, and the horror element has all but disappeared. On top of this, someone thought it was a good idea to add the token black guy to do nothing but talk jive, curse, and be that comic relief that nobody wanted to see, but everyone had to watch.
The plot eventually finds its footing when the characters are put in a position to find the daughter of an Umbrella scientist, before the city becomes even more chaotic than what it already is. I was never too into the story, and it's the action scenes that carries the paper thin plot from point A to B. The characters are all filler for the most part, and since some of their death scenes are so weak, they don't even really qualify as good filler. I don't have an issue with the acting, as no one really stood out to me, bad or good.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse isn't that bad of a movie, and at least there was some attempt to follow the storyline of the game. Still, as a fan of the game, I was pretty much disappointed with this, and as a zombie fan, I was disappointed with the death scenes. I only recommend this to serious fans of the games as well as action buffs. The movie is 94 minutes.
Pros:
-Some decent action, Jill is hot
Cons:
-Nothing screams look at me at all
