Farewell, beloved downtown Toronto

Rating: Null/10 (13 October 2004)

Spoilers
'Raccoon City' is represented on the screen by a place known fondly to us a good old 'TO', alias the City of Toronto.First Canadian Place, Royal Bank Plaza, Commerce Court, Scotia Place and, last but not least, Nathan Philip Square ('city hall' in the movie). It's wretchedly heart-breaking to see the whole place blow up and vanish in a mushroom cloud.
Resident Evil II is popular video game with the same name (second version too) brought to life (screen life, that is). Not only Alice, but also Jill Valentine is a character in the game (and Jill in uncannily remarkable likeness, so I heard). Plenty of zombie and creatures are also reproduced, although not all (e.g. we don't see killer plants in the movie). On the other hand, Alice's rescue of the little girl is so reminiscent of Ripley's rescue of 'Newt' in Aliens (the 2nd, and the best, in the series).
In addition to the good action series and the attention-demanding sound effect, the movie offers a good variety of characters and groups involved in the game: the main rescue party for the girl, the good-guy soldiers trying to escape, the zombies and other assortments of affected mutants, the bad-guy soldiers from Umbrella Corp, Nemesis.one shouldn't really complain about being bored.
As to the superficially clever suggestion that Trinity (Matrix Trilogy), Selene (Underworld) and Alice are all alike..Nonsense! To suggest the first two are alike simple because they both wear tight black leather is about as clever as suggesting that the Washington Redskins and Manchester United are alike because they both wear red and play a game called 'football'. The opening of my comments on Underworld on 30 November 2003 pointed out one of the differences. More generally, Trinity focuses much more on action relating to physical combat and even when she is shooting, the choreographed action takes precedent. Selene on the other hand is mostly shooting, very much of John Woo's double pistol style, with a focus on FORM rather than ACTION. Alice, while doing both, is neither. The 'action' we see Alice engaged in is mainly produced by deft camera work end editing.
Instead of offering one Amazon (this not a subliminal advertisement), the movie offers two. While in a supporting role, Jill Valentine played by Sienna Guillory seems to have captured the imagination of the audience. If they ever make R.E. 3, would certainly like to see an even heavier role given to her.