Crappy sequel.

Rating: 1/10 (6 November 2004)

I'm a fan of the games who liked the first movie. But man, how I hate this sequel. Everything that made the original so good has been either ruined or ignored here. RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE is more a video game than a real movie. 'That's what it's supposed to be' you may say. Well, the problem is that any of the RE games has a better story, better direction and even better acting than this boring mess.
RE: APOCALYPSE is basically a series of unexciting and badly shot action scenes loosely joined by a paper-thin story. There is no lack of character development here, if only because there are no characters in this movie, just cardboard cut-outs. The actors do what they can with what they are given, but you never get to care much for any of them. Milla Jovovich looks very hot again, but she seems to be sleep-walking most of the time, in spite of all the action stuff. The rest are more or less serviceable except for Mike Epps, who is deeply annoying as the supposedly funny black token character/comic relief.
If you thought Paul W. S. Anderson was a bad director, you are going to miss him here. Alexander Witt's direction is so bad that he makes Michael Bay look like James Cameron. Apparently, he's one of those guys who think that an action movie must be a 90 minute-long video-clip. He keeps using bad post-production slow-motion and awful editing techniques to make sure that you can hardly tell what's going on, specially during the non-stop action scenes. And just in case that's not enough, there are moments when, for instance, tenths of zombies suddenly teleport into an empty room to kill a disposable supporting character.
As I said, the plot is basically non-existent, in part because the movie feels very choppy. The (so-called) characters keep showing up in different locations, but we hardly see how or why they got there. We aren't even told how some of them escaped from a church surrounded by hordes of undead. After all, that's not necessary, because the makers of this movie assume that their target audience is made up of people who turn off their brains and become zombies the moment they step into a movie theater. But you know: Suspension of disbelief is one thing; brain damage is something entirely different. The former makes you accept that the dead may walk, the later forcefully feeds you with everything else in this movie.
In short: If you liked the original, you'll be disappointed with this sequel (to say the least). Unless, of course, you are one of those guys who only care about hot babes kicking ass and think than people like me are stupid film critic wannabes. If not, see the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake instead. It's the same, but good.