Due to the surprising success of Resident
evil, a sequel was a no-brainer (much to the disgust of gamers). Like the first
film, I watched this strongly mediocre sequel when I was a wee lad, but unlike
Resident evil, Resident evil: apocalypse (with its misleading and inappropriatly epic title) hasn’t stood the test of time. A lot
of what was great about the first film is thrown out the window with this one,
and unfortunately this is where the series picks up a lot of its problems and
needs to stick with them because of this crappy movie.
The plot is very much like the first. It takes
place in Raccoon city, situated just above the Hives surface entrance. Due to
the Umbrella Corporation seriously under-estimating how fucked up things got down
there, the T virus is let loose upon the city and havoc inevitably ensues.
Alice, along with a few other characters who are either pulled from the games
or are seriously annoying, get trapped in the city when Umbrella seals it in
order to contain the T virus. Alice and her new found BFF’s need to find a way
out before the city is nuked completely off the radar. Sound familiar? Yes, its
basically the same as the first movie, but not executed nearly as well.
creepy zombie children...*shudders*
Despite my extremely sarcastic tone, the
film does a FEW redeeming qualities that stop it from being a steaming pile of
Licker shit. The setting this time around, a combination of inner city streets
and suburbia, works well and looks quite good. Especially when seeing those perfect
American green lawns and white picket fences…don’t you just WANT a viral
outbreak?! All right maybe that’s a bit harsh. Like I stated before, the new
characters this time around include a few from the Resident evil game series-
probably because it was the main complaint for the first film from gamers, as
it had no characters to my knowledge from the games per say. Unfortunately from
here on out, the filmmakers did that for every damn sequel, with these game
characters just being there to keep the gamers from whining too much. Instead
it just gave me another reason to whine, and boy do I love doing that! Wait I’m
meant to be positive here, right. The character of Jill Valentine is actually a
nice addition, providing Alice with another girl-power enthused sidekick that
is well acted by Sienna Guillory.
From left to right: Alice (Milla Jovovich), Angie Ashford (Sophie Vavasseur) and Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory).
A scene in the film takes place in a
school, and features some creepy zombie children that I really dug. Off course,
they are underused and most of their potential is spoilt. Our zombie dogs also
return in one of the films only decent scenes- even if it had some cringe
worthy one liners. We also get a solid, if brief, explanation on how the T
virus came to be; with this probably being the strongest aspect of this weak
film. The ending, with Alice yet again awakening at the hands of Umbrella, is
also well done. This film also has Alice say one of her best lines that would go
on to be overused in all the future sequels: ‘my name is Alice’. Yet again, a
scene that would have been solid is ruined by another silly addition; Alice
seems to acquire telekinesis. WHAT THE FUCK. Why the decided to do that ill
never know; its just plain unnecessary. We saw Alice kick some major ass
towards the end of Resident Evil without any super powers, so why did the filmmakers
give her Telekinesis and make her super-human? These ‘super-human’ powers make Alice’s
character almost invincible and hard to care about. Yikes, and those where the
positives…lets have a look at what was REALLY bad about this movie.
hey, at least they managed to make the Zombie dogs look even freakier!
Jeff Danna’s score for Resident Evil:
Apocalypse pales considerably in comparison to Marilyn Manson’s for Resident
evil, and comes off as generic, cheap and really terrible in some areas. There
are a few parts where it is ok at the most, but those are few and far between. Apocalypse
also has the problem that the first film had in terms of gore, but this time it’s
toned down even further through some poorly done editing during scenes of
‘violence’. How you shoot a zombie in the head without any blood resulting is
beyond me. I’m not sure why they decided to take this direction, especially
with a damn zombie movie. Like the zombie dogs, our beloved lickers come back
for Resident evil: apocalypse. They are entirely digitally rendered this time,
and as someone who much prefers a combination of these and animatronics (as in the
first film), it was disappointing. Their roll isn’t as big here, but the scene
could have been done so much better; for example A moderate plot hole is
created, as these lickers don’t mutate further after eating ‘fresh DNA’ (as the
red queen so elegantly put it in Resident evil). This is just pure laziness on
the film makers part, and plot holes like this would go on to riddle every
Resident evil sequel to follow.
one of the three lickers that we see; while the CGI work is good, i would have liked to see some animatronics.
Another unwelcome thing that Resident evil:
apocalypse introduces to the series is throw away characters that you KNOW are
going to get eaten, and do stupid, stupid things that make you wish they would
sooner. Characters didn’t do this in Resident evil. Alice’s costume this time
around really sucks as well, and doesn’t compare to the simplicity of her sexy
red dress in Resident evil. Her introductory action scene is laughably bad, and
alludes to the mostly extremely mediocre action scenes to follow the rest of
the film. The most irritating thing in these scenes was the inclusion of an
annoying ‘whip’ type sound pulled straight from The Matrix whenever Alice makes
one of her kung-foo kicks. And she does A LOT of those. This makes every melee action
sequence unintentionally funny and corny. In an attempt to reference classic
zombie movies, a scene takes place in a graveyard with people rising from their
coffins as infected. While it’s a nice reference, it makes absolutely no sense
how these corpses came to life, no matter how you twist it, with how the T
virus is explained to work. The mind boggles…
LJ, one of the more annoying characters, getting some unwanted attention from a zombie hooker. DEM HOES IS NASTEY.
One of our main antagonists in Resident
evil: apocalypse is Nemesis; basically a big guy, in a big rubber suit, with
big ass shoes on, holding two big machine guns who shoots things and grunts whenever
he is on screen. He is never frightening, cool or badass, and the nature of who
he actually is never gets used to its full emotional potential. The first time
Alice meets our big rubber suit man, some of the worst wire stunts in the
series are displayed (although Resident evil: afterlife nearly took that crown),
as they are throughout the film. Like I said in my review for Resident Evil,
the first film had some corny dialogue, but it wasn’t cringe-worthy. Well,
Resident evil: apocalypse takes care of that, with some truly BAD lines spoken
by basically every character, even our favourite MillaJovovich who doesn’t do
as good a job as Alice this time. Iv already stated how un-necessary it was
giving Alice telekinesis and super powers, and you will get the chance to hear
me groan about that even more with my reviews of the sequels. One last thing
that shows just how shallow resident evil: apocalypse really is, was the exclusion
of continuing and improving the Alice in wonderland references that the first
film had, depriving Resident evil: apocalypse of any much needed depth
whatsoever.
Mr. rubber suit, A.K.A Nemesis, shooting something off screen with his big gun and roaring...basically what he does for the whole movie.
Wow, well that was a rant. As you probably
would have ascertained by now, Resident evil: Apocalypse was a poorly executed
and horror-less sequel to its predecessor; giving the series silly story
elements to follow, and paving the pay for sequels riddled with plot holes. Not
all hope was lost though, as Resident evil: extinction brought the series back
to its roots and serves as a much more solid, but still flawed, sequel.
1.5/5
recommended classification: 12+ for moderate horror/action violence, coarse language and nudity, and some blood and gore
Due to the surprising success of Resident
evil, a sequel was a no-brainer (much to the disgust of gamers). Like the first
film, I watched this strongly mediocre sequel when I was a wee lad, but unlike
Resident evil, Resident evil: apocalypse (with its misleading and inappropriatly epic title) hasn’t stood the test of time. A lot
of what was great about the first film is thrown out the window with this one,
and unfortunately this is where the series picks up a lot of its problems and
needs to stick with them because of this crappy movie.
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