My name is Eric, and I remember... well, not too much. Unfortunately, one of the things I remember is watching this film last night. I remember being one of the suckers caught up in the initial Resident Evil hype, where mistakingly, the general population believed that a film could conceivably be born from one of the greatest video games ever. If you've seen the first RE, then you're familiar with the way in which the film came completely out of left field in relation to the game.

So it shouldn't be much of a surprise that although RE: Apocalypse begins the same way in which the video game sequel started, it quickly takes a sharp left into the world of Paul W.S. Anderson, and not Capcom. Picking up where RE left us off, Alice awakens in the Raccoon City facility to a setting of violence and destruction, as the entrance to the hive has been breached and zombies have invaded the secluded town. Great scenes of panic and survival tactics litter the first half hour of the film as townsfolk and S.T.A.R.S operatives both try to escpae the clutches of Umbrella's T Virus victims. I have to admit that although we've seen this countless times in past zombie flicks, the carnage of the initial wave of zombies in Raccoon City is visually astounding. There is enough blood, bullets and brain eating to send an audience into an alliteration frenzy.

Making an appearance in the film is Jill Valentine (Guillory) and Carlos Oliveira (Fehr) from the video game franchise. Although their place in the film is relative to the plot, there is no connection between their characters and the respective roles they took in the game. Missing from the big picture are the other male stars of the game, Chris and Leon, no where to be found. This perplexes me in that Anderson writes in a main character and an abstract body to lead the helm into the third installment of the film (<b> SHIT, A SPOILER!</b>), rather than right the ship by re-establishing the video game's storyline and following with more important and familiar characters.

Umbrella decides to finally quarantine the city after a planned evacuation from the virus fails and seals off all entrances and exits to the small metropolis. Panic stricken, the remaining population seeks refuge from the blood thirsty zombies, a crowd which includes Jill and Carlos (both in separate parties). After being saved by Alice, Jill, a reporter and token comedic element L.J. are contacted by Dr. Ashcroft, head scientist for the T Virus project. His daughter is apparently lost somewhere in Raccoon City and he strikes a deal with the group: freedom for finding and saving his daughter. He extends the offer to Carlos and his Umbrella agents as well, figuring the more bodies in the hunt, the better.

As the groups respectively search for Ashcroft's daughter, Umbrella decides to unleash its newest weapon, the Nemesis (Matt from the first RE) to exhibit some tactical weapons testing. Possibly the coolest facet of the film, the Nemesis is a hulking mutation resembling the Tyrant from the second RE game. Carrying his trademark rocket launcher and a nasty little gatling gun, the Nemesis mows down the majority of the S.T.A.R.S team and then begins on his new objective - eliminate Alice.

Admirably, RE: Apocalypse executes a pretty nifty storyline while providing a steady flow of action. Unfortunately, the flaws outweight the favorables severely in this film, headlined by some of the worst acting I have seen in a major release since House of the Dead. The character dialogue is amateur at best, oft using cliche lines that one would expect from a Michael Dudikoff or Lorenzo Lamas action flick. As mentioned earlier, Nemesis is the best feature of this film, and one of the reasons why is because the mutherfucker doesn't utter a single word.

Aslo scarring the street credit of this film is its desire to mimic the action sequences of the Matrix films. I'm sick and tired of directors utilizing stop motion photography and bullet riding to create a techno ass-kicking environment. This is supposed to be a horror movie, not Resident Evil: Dance Dance Revolution (although Zombies doing the Robot would be sweet!). Rather than using these little camera tricks sparingly, Witt saturates the films fight scenes with all sorts of slow motion trickery, dulling the effect of the blows. I was less than amazed, in fact, I frequently lost interest when Alice encountered a group of baddies. Predictable and trite, you know she's gonna use the Tae Bo to kick everyone's ass, so why even bother watching?

In my opinion, RE: Apocalypse is the second failure to fall out of Paul W.S. Anderson's cabinet this year, the first being AVP. After viewing Anderson's second 2004 horror offering, similarities between the films are apparent, and the films' failures can be attributed to the same aspect: Anderson loses all regard for the "roots" of his projects and creates a CGI infected, MTV mess of a movie. Although it wasn't a surprise let down to me, RE: Apocalypse was still a disappointment that leaves me wondering if someone else should step in to the writer's helm to redirect this franchise back to respectability.