Resident Evil: Apocalypse
(Columbia Tristar Region 1 NTSC DVD)
(2004)
review by Head Cheeze

I have to be honest and say I’m not much of a fan of the Resident Evil games, but that’s only because I’ve only actually played one of them, and that was nearly a decade ago. Still, from what I recall, I spent a great deal of time walking around a mansion shooting at zombies, dodging half-eaten Doberman pinschers, and cursing out loud every time something shattered a window or fell from the ceiling upon me. It definitely rattled my nerves, and I’d love to see where the series has gone since, but I neither have the patience or the dexterity to bother to program the flashing clock on my VCR, let alone master the impossibly complex looking controllers for the latest game systems. I’m quite content with the directional keys and mouse clicking of computer games, thanksverymuch.

So, with this in mind, I sat down and watched Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the second film based on Capcom’s popular series. I found the first Resident Evil film to be a bit tame for a zombie flick, and a bit silly for a serious action flick, but there were a few solid scares, and star Milla Jovovich looked like she was having a hell of a lot of fun as Alice, the amnesiac agent whose ferocious fighting skills and killer instinct help to guide her out of the bowels of a lab teaming with undead hordes and all manner of nasty critters, only to surface to a world overrun by the things. I rather liked the apocalyptic ending of the first film, and, fittingly, Resident Evil: Apocalypse opens where that one left off.

Raccoon City has been designated a biohazard area as the virus from the first film has now spilled over into the city’s streets, infecting the population, and forcing the Umbrella Corporation to quarantine the area in an effort to cover up their nefarious doings. Trapped behind the walls of the city, Jill Valentine (Guillory), Carlos Oliveira (Fehr) and Alice must work together to locate the daughter of an Umbrella scientist who promises them an avenue of escape if they safely return her to him. Meanwhile, another Umbrella scientist opts to use the situation to test two of his latest experiments; the hulking killing machine known as Nemesis, and Alice, herself.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse was clearly made for fans of the games, as it features several characters and situations that, I am told, are directly lifted from the plots of the various game sequels, thus making it a very faithful adaptation. So, as far as I can tell, Resident Evil fans will surely find much to love here. However, as someone who knows next to nothing about the series, I was a bit under whelmed by it all.

Much like the first film, Apocalypse is more of a Matrix-style action flick than a horror film. Sure, there are zombies, fast-moving reptilian creatures, and the rather horrific looking Nemesis, but nothing about them is particularly scary, and they’re usually just fodder for various kung-fu techniques and high-tech weapons fire, with Jovovich, in particular, wiping out enemies en masse, with a slew of dizzying gravity defying martial arts moves. This is all very impressive, at first, but grows nearly as tiresome as Paul W.S. Anderson’s trite dialogue by the time the film lumbers toward its somewhat silly sequel-ready conclusion.

Still, I didn’t completely dislike Resident Evil: Apocalypse, as it had the same sort of comic book whimsy that made the first film so entertaining, albeit in a lighter-than-air sort of way. It’s the sort of popcorn chomping entertainment that seeps out of one’s memory like water through a sieve, but that’s not always such a bad thing (see The Rock, or, for that matter, any one of Michael Bay’s films). I also appreciated the film’s grrrrl power, with Jovovich and the charming Guillory proving to be two of the loveliest lethal weapons to grace the screen.

Columbia Tristar releases Resident Evil: Apocalypse in a 2 disc set loaded with special features, including several featurettes, three commentary tracks, twenty deleted scenes, outtakes, stills galleries, and lots more.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse won’t win any awards (unless there’s one for “most stuff blown up”), but it’s a harmless and mildly charming diversion that manages to put a smile on the face while putting minimal strain on the brain.