Game – Movie Review: Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)

So the first Resident Evil movie was a huge success in the end…who saw that coming?

A sequel was always going to be on the cards & with the ending to Resident Evil pretty much confirming that it would star Alice again & would be set in Raccoon City. As a fan of the game this was pretty exciting…the first movie wasn’t as bad as expected & with rumours of S.T.A.R.S characters making an appearance as well as the Nemesis we had much to be hopeful for.

So Umbrella decided to open up the Hive to send a research team in….bad idea as they are quickly over-run & killed. The infection spreads to the nearby city & within a few days it is over-run with zombies & other mutated bio-weapons. Umbrella seals off the city in the hope of containing the infection. Meanwhile Alice awakes in a lab having been experimented on & escapes into the city.

Elsewhere we have Jill Valentine, a cop & Carlos Olivera, an Umbrella operative (both characters taken from the games) fighting to survive in the city. Alice runs into Jill hiding in a church with various NPC characters & helps her in fighting off a bunch of Lickers. Together they get an offer from a Dr Ashford, the creator of the T-virus whose daughter is lost in the city. Find her, save her & he will get them out of the city. They have to do this before Umbrella bomb the city destroying all evidence.

He also makes the same offer to Carlos & his remaining team with both groups converging at the school. Unknown to the group of survivors though is that Umbrella has released another weapon into the city to mop up anyone running around who might be causing problems (such as S.T.A.R.S members)…the Nemesis.

Pretty exciting, huh?

Sadly no…the film stumbles from one over the top set piece to another with rushed sequences, pointless references to the games & some god-awful acting. I really disliked what was done with this movie.

For starters all elements of horror were dropped in favour of action…Alice is now the ultimate ass-kicker & the church/Licker scene is laughable. That isn’t even the worst bit, no, the worst bit is when Alice has a Karate fight with the Nemesis at the end & it freaking loses!

Ugh…it makes you want to put your head in your hands with just how stupid it is. The character Jill is possibly the worst thing about this movie though. Poorly acted with a pathetic ass-kicking portrayal (why are all characters used like this?) which is pointless in the face of Alice’s super-human-ness.

At some point during the early parts of the zombie outbreak…the Racoon Police Department is trying to get a handle on things & have several zombies handcuffed up obviously unaware of what they are. Jill walks in & starts shooting them in the head without a word said & not a single cop reacting. No wonder they all die…

Combining elements of Resident Evil 2 & 3 made sense but again it’s done poorly. Carlos & his team are taken from the 3rd game & while Oded Fehr does an alright job in his role the rest of his team are cringe-worthy actors. You want them to die just so you don’t have to listen to their idiotic dialogue.

Visually the effects are better then they were in the first film in regards to the Lickers but the Nemesis looks plastic, less like a human being that has been transformed. Talking of which…Nemesis is Matt from the first film transformed by the Licker wound he received. That he looses in a fist-fight with Alice is bad enough but him turning good at the end just because she says his name is exasperating. They managed to turn the ultimate Resident Evil threat into a joke.

The film isn’t terrible all the way through though…there are a few moments that are enjoyable such as zombie children, a group of obnoxious S.T.A.R.S getting wrecked by the Nemesis & Jill’s outfit.

Unlike before the references to the games are much more plentiful & much more obvious. It’s confusing ‘because it seems like Apocalypse was made with fans in mind more then the first & you’re really left wondering who is the target audience for this movie (that will get worse as the series progresses).

Straight up the worst of the Resident Evil movies to date…just poorly done. The total lack of zombies is unforgivable & a poor interpretation of the Nemesis does the film a lot of harm. The ending is confusing & sets up the next film in the series poorly.