Stimulating visuals and kick-ass female leads, but not much else.

Rating: 4/10 (3 May 2006)

The film begins with a recap of what happened at the end of the last film with Alice waking up to discover Racoon city dead empty. After this we see the virus is released by some Umbrella workers who go into the hive to check what had happen and in doing so, they release the virus and these zombies into the city. To counter attack this problem Umbrella decides to seal off the city even with many uninfected citizens and law-enforcements getting left behind. Alice discovers that she has been injected with a virus, which has given her superhuman abilities. She also come across a small group of survivors led by officer Jill Valentine that she teams up with after being contacted by doctor who wants them to find his daughter and in exchange he'll get them out before Umbrella nukes their mishap.
Now this felt like a video game, but that doesn't mean its actually a good film. I found it to be an improvement over the unexceptional first flick, but not by too much. The original film was directed by Paul Anderson, but he decided to go with the "Alien vs. Predator" project instead of directing this piece. He might not have directed the film, but he did write the screenplay for sequel. Instead debut director Alexander Witt sits in the director's chair and brings to the series a far more expansive cookie cutter action flick that's very nice to look at. Well, that is the case when you can see what's happening! Just like the first film this one is just as slick and overly showy in detail. But what did become distracting was the constant use of stupid slow-motion and hasty editing that just got in the way of some of the action. Witt goes out of his way to up the action in leaps and bounds. While, these moments might be longer and be filled with many stylistic Matrix touches, but they just seemed quite pedestrian and unexciting at times. The fast and furious camera-work and pounding metal soundtrack is what gave these scenes its jumpy and highly-powered bursts. It just falls in the same hole as the first film with the arty techniques taking over the show, but at least on this occasion there was more brainless action to go around within it's flashy imprints. What I found a crime was that, where was the splatter? Yep, the violence is watered down and even far more than the previous flick, but the CGI effects were slightly better. The monster make-up is top-notch, though. The morbid claustrophobic atmosphere of "The Hive" in the first is replaced here with an subdued post-apocalyptic presence in the city.
Again the ragged plot and characters are secondary to the gloss and glitter of the production. The basic story sets up a typical small group of one-dimensional survivors trying to survive from a horde of zombies, rabid dogs and a mutant killing machine and at the end it gets us geared up for another sequel. It's the usual fluff with many incoherent and illogical lapses and cardboard, comic characters. The plot throws in everything but the kitchen sink from that of the power and influence of the corporation to flashbacks and heroic nonsense. But they don't bother to make too much sense of it with the inane script coming across with the standard clichÃ© dialogue. They even try to demonstrate some humour with a comic relief character played by Mike Epps that draws more duds and only adds to the misfire. The humour just feels miscast, but Epps' performance is the most lively. The other performances are reasonably cold, but I thought that the always sexy Milla Jovovich was fine and kicked ass again, but really she wasn't given enough to do and she should've been made the centrepiece. Sienna Guillory looked great as the strong willed, mini-skirt wearing Jill Valentine. While, the support roles from Oded Fehr, Sandrine Holt, Zack Ward and Jared Harris are thin at best.
"Resident Evil: Apocalypse" is a boisterous and overblown piece of junk that just can't keep still for too long. Well, at least this popcorn flick does kinda entertain and gladly flies by quick enough. Amen!