CORPORATE LINE: A deadly virus has been unleashed on the population of Raccoon City. Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a terrifying adventure in survival horror. Milla Jovovich (5th Element, Dummy) returns as Alice, one of only two survivors of the contained biochemical disaster in the first Resident Evil, the $100 million hit that serves as a prologue to the all-out action and horror of Resident Evil: Apocalypse.
The film begins where the first film left off, with Alice in the heart of the ravaged and deadly Raccoon City. She has been subjected to biogenetic experimentation by the vast Umbrella Corporation and become genetically altered, with super-human strengths, senses and dexterity. These skills, and more, will be needed if anyone is to remain alive.
Alice is joined by Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory – Time Machine, Helen of Troy), a recently demoted member of Umbrella Corp’s elite Special Tactics and Rescue Services (S.T.A.R.S.), Terri Morales (Sandrine Holt – Once a Thief, Happy Hour), Carlos Oliviera (Oded Fehr – The Mummy, Presidio Med), L.J. (Mike Epps – Next Friday, All About the Benjamins), and Nicholai (Zack Ward – Titus, Almost Famous) who must survive and escape what is quickly becoming a City of the Dead. To reach their goal, they will need to battle their way through the relentless onslaught of the ravenous undead, as well as Umbrella forces and terrifying bioengineered weapons, the most deadly of which is the colossal, heavily armed assassin, Nemesis.
THE GOOD:
There is nothing good about this dud.
THE BAD: This zombie flick is flaccid. It opts for profanity over gore. What kind of zombie movie is that? The recent “Dawn of the Dead” outshines this because it is a movie about the zombies not about a star. “Resident Evil” shoots closer to a “Matrix” style than a horror movie. Has the director ever played “Resident Evil”? The game is about the atmosphere, the fear, the sweaty palms—the movie has no moments like that. The script is terrible—opting for a few laughs in place of actually scaring us.
FRANKLY: “Resident Evil: Apocalypse” is the rare movie where you wonder who’d be better off dead—the heroine or the monsters. A better answer would be the whole video game genre.
+ Charlie Craine
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