Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This is considered to be the worst movie in the "Resident Evil" series and for mostly good reason. I admit that the only reason I was attracted to this movie was how it was on Roger Ebert's most hated movies list. I don't hate it as much as he did, but I still hated it. I have known seen every "Resident Evil" movie. I'll at least give them props for being better than oh, 70% of video game movies, not that that says much. The movie's main fault is that it's just nothing but fight scene after fight scene.There's just absolutely nothing in this film that hasn't been done better in other zombie movies. Heck, there's nothing that the other films in the series hasn't done better. It's completely mindless violence with random shooting, which unfortunately could be interpreted as a faithful video game adaptation. We have in fact gotten better video game movies this year like "Tomb Raider" and "Rampage" which, while not masterpieces, at least treat their stories like actual stories. I'm not that familiar with the games, but I was able to recognize Jill Valentine at least. I do think Ebert went a bit too far when telling people not to let their kids date people who like this movie, considering that he was the only critic on RottenTomatoes that liked "Speed 2: Cruise Control". *1/2

Jill Valentine and three other people are holed up in an abandoned church trying to escape the ever growing army of zombies within Raccoon City (one of the stupidest names for a city ever!). They are in a battle against a group of Lickers and almost out of ammo, things look bleak.Suddenly a bright shines through the huge stained glass window...Alice blows through the glass mounted on top of a motorbike. She lands perfectly, informs the survivors to take cover and proceeds to blow away all the Lickers one by one in an eye shattering display of slow motion action enough to give any fanboy a hard on. At this exact moment the franchise dies, this is where the Resi Evil film franchise loses the gritty grown up 'Aliens' clone formula of the first film and enters the realm of hyper martial arts and lots and lots of slow motion action.The character of Alice has been experimented on since the last film, apparently, which now gives her superhuman strength, speed and agility. This in turn takes the character and the film into the world of 'The Matrix' and absurd action set pieces.Don't get me wrong the film isn't entirely bad, the atmosphere and visuals of the film are decent whilst the abandoned Raccoon City is created very well. You do get a great sense of dread from the deserted city, it feels dangerous and eerie with a really nice dark tone. The film is still pretty adult I must say, there is plenty of blood, some gore and quite a few jump in your seat moments. The general survival concept is along the same lines as the first film with a small band of people trying to escape the City, its a solid idea which works. The problem is the inclusion of Alice who drags the film down utterly with her over the top macho invincibility.The inclusion of Nemesis was of course required by all Resi fans and he is faithfully created, amazingly, although a bit rubbery. Not being a fanboy myself I just don't get why the Umbrella Corp would release this huge monster simply to kill the remaining S.T.A.R.S. members. Was this some kind of field test? and the fact they planned to nuke the City wouldn't that somewhat negate their precious creation? On top of that they make Alice fight this big guy for no real reason other than to have an exciting finale fight in the film...oh and something about seeing who is stronger, err why??? All that work just to have him fight Alice?!The problem as said before is quite simply the character of Alice and the fact we have to follow her around from one superhero sequence to the next. On top of that you have the pathetic alpha female rivalry between Jill and Alice (and both actresses) as both compete for sexiest zombie killer. Jill wins purely down to her ridiculously skimpy outfit which is obviously in there just for the teen male audience. Because of course most special unit cops wear tight hot pants and a tight vest when in terror situations...wait this is a serious film?Its a brave attempt which literately just keeps its head above the waves and manages to be a reasonable film. Shame about all the slow motion crap but this is what happens when Jovovich is in a film. The film is basically let down by stupid action sequences which vomit on your suspension of disbelief, had these bits been more sensible or relatively realistic then the film could have been pretty solid.5/10

After surviving the horrors of The Hive and managing to escape, Alice (Mila Jovovich) discovers that the T-Virus has found it's way into Raccoon City resurrecting the dead. On her route to try and get out the city, she comes across other bands of survivors and they join forces to try and escape before the Umbrella Corporation resorts to extreme measures in "cleansing" the city. To do this, though, they first need to rescue the daughter of Dr. Ashford (the creator of the T-Virus) who is still within in the city limits. This will be made all the more harder, however, as the Umbrella Corporation have sent in a formidable opponent to stop them...Nemesis.Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a pretty decent sequel to the enjoyable Resident Evil movie, and is made much more enjoyable with the introduction of Nemesis. Thankfully, Nemesis makes more than just one solitary appearance as he is such a formidable character & presence (just like Pyramid Head in Silent Hill), and I'd maybe go as far as to say that if it wasn't for that character then the movie may have lacked a wee bit even with all the other action.The action in the movie is pretty relentless from start to finish with a good few impressive action scenes, two of which being the church scene involving Alice and three Lickers, and the action following the scene where Alice runs face first down a 200 foot building.The story line continues on from the 1st movie, but never really develops much until the final few scenes which lead onto the 3rd film, so don't expect much from this sequel story-wise.The acting is a wee bit dire in some places, mainly from Sienna Guillory who plays Jill Valentine, but thankfully it's not bad enough to actually throw you off from watching the film.All in all, like I say, this is a decent sequel and even if you're not familiar with the game series, it's still an enjoyable action flick.

In this chapter of the film series, it becomes painfully clear that the franchise isn't going to treat the audience like adults.Sure it has a lot of action scenes to "up the ante", and they give the fans a little more what they want. But it all seems such a waste on what they should've been doing in such a large city. They have a chance to portray the epidemic in such a way, yet they resort to keeping it all contained in buildings. Rarely do you see any large hoards of zombies outside and where the makeup on villain "Nemesis" was fantastic, the "walking tank" is reduced to a former good guy. Pardon my language, but what a "F@%* Y!$" to the fans and one of the series best villain.God bless Milla Jovovich for actually trying, and Sienna Guillory was not bad as Jill Valentine. She looks the part, but every time you see her she drops an F-bomb (I think I'm in love). What better way to cap off all this sadness by adding comic relief Mike Epps (Whose actually pretty funny), and wasting the effort of confident talents Oded Fehr, Thomas Kretschmann, Jared Harris and Iain Glen.To be completely honest, the best thing about this movie was the superb teaser trailer directed by Marcus Nispel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRnp4UPI-Qk). It's one of my favourite marketing trailers ever, and I've made it a personal mission to show as many people as possible.Final Verdict: Just one great big missed opportunity. Has anyone ever watched a George A. Romero Film? 4/10.