Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) Screen Gems/Action-Horror RT: 94 minutes Rated R (language, strong bloody violence, brief nudity) Director: Alexander Witt Screenplay: Paul W.S. Anderson Music: Jeff Danna Cinematography: Derek Rogers and Christian Sebaldt Release date: September 10, 2004 (US) Starring: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr, Thomas Kretschmann, Sandrine Holt, Mike Epps, Sophie Vavasseur, Jared Harris, Zack Ward, Razaaq Adoti, Matthew G. Taylor, Iain Glen. Box Office: $51.2M (US)/$129.3M (World)
Rating: ***
Thankfully, another director stepped in and took the reins for Resident Evil: Apocalypse, a much tighter movie than its 2002 predecessor. In his one and only directorial effort (to date), Alexander Witt has fashioned a pretty entertaining “fight for survival” kind of horror movie.
Obviously, these Resident Evil movies owe as much to George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead) as they do to the video game from Capcom. I made my opinion of video game movies quite clear in my review of the first Resident Evil movie, but I failed to mention my stand on the “fast zombies vs. slow zombies” debate. As a purist, I’m all about the slow-moving zombies of Romero’s original Dead trilogy. By definition, a zombie is a re-animated dead person only capable of the most rudimentary functions. They’re NOT capable of running or moving too fast. One could argue that the Resident Evil movies are an exception to this rule because these dead people are brought back to life by the T-Virus. As fans of the series already know, the side effects also include enhanced superhuman abilities. Okay fine, I can accept that explanation and enjoy the Resident Evil movies. Still, there’s something to be said for tradition and I’ll ALWAYS prefer the walking dead over super-zombies. That being said, these super-zombies are pretty fierce. These movies are pretty cool. Milla Jovovich is 100% bad ass. Sweet!
Resident Evil: Apocalypse begins several hours after the previous movie left off. As you may recall, only two people survived the events of the first movie. Alice (Jovovich) gets taken to another medical facility by the Umbrella Corporation while Matt gets placed in something called “The Nemesis Program”. Another team goes to re-open the Hive and that’s when all hell breaks loose in Raccoon City. It results in a city-wide zombie outbreak and a mass exodus to last remaining exit.
Alice wakes up in the hospital and wanders outside to find that the T-Virus has spread throughout the city. Umbrella representative Major Timothy Cain (Kretschmann, Wanted) orders the bridge shut down and the remaining survivors in Raccoon City sent back to their homes. Those trapped inside include police officer Jill Valentine (Guillory, Gunless) and another team of Umbrella commandos led by Carlos Olivera (Fehr, The Mummy). Earlier, Umbrella extracted several important people from Raccoon City, but Dr. Charles Ashford (Harris, I Shot Andy Warhol) has refused to leave until his young daughter Angela (Vavasseur, Becoming Jane) has been located and extracted as well. Since his people at Umbrella don’t appear to want to help the girl, he contacts Alice by way of a public telephone and offers her a deal. If she finds and rescues his daughter, he’ll help her escape from Raccoon City with her companions. By this time, Alice has hooked up with Jill, reporter Terri Morales (Holt, Underground: Awakening) and jive-talking L.J. (Epps, Next Friday), a street smart dude who knows how to use his guns (one in each hand).
It turns out Angela is hiding in her school and when Team Alice arrives to collect her, they find that Team Carlos is already there. It seems that Dr. Ashford offered them a similar deal. The Umbrella Corporation plans to drop a nuclear weapon on Raccoon City the next morning, so the survivors only have a few hours to get out of town before they’re annihilated with the zombies. In addition, they send a hulking monster called Nemesis (Taylor, Gothika) after Alice and her companions. It’s gonna be one hell of a night in Raccoon City.
Overall, I like Resident Evil: Apocalypse. It’s a pretty good flick as far as this sort of thing goes. Look, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that any of the Resident Evil movies are quality cinema. They’re not! They’re pure mindless junk geared towards 21st century video game addicts. I don’t know how closely the movies adhere to the games, but I do know that the movies have definite entertainment value. The Resident Evil movies are the good kind of cinema junk. I realize that I must sound like a broken record, but Milla Jovovich is the main reason to watch these movies. She does a good job in Resident Evil: Apocalypse. In fact, she’s even more bad ass this time around as the experiments performed on her by Umbrella have given her superhuman strength, speed and agility. She kicks some serious zombie ass in this installment. Once again, she has an equally bad ass female companion in Jill. Guillory makes a pretty cool heroine.
I don’t see the point in commenting on any individual performances here, who goes to a Resident Evil flick for the acting? It does what it sets out to do; it gives its target audience 94 minutes of good violent fun. I’m still not crazy about the CGI effects, but I’m getting used to them. As a critic, I probably shouldn’t like Resident Evil: Apocalypse, but isn’t that what a guilty pleasure is all about?
