Resident Evil: Rubbishalypse

Rating: 5/10 (5 June 2011)

I'd like to start by saying, I didn't like the first Resident Evil, but I saw potential in the sequel, as we'd be out of that bunker and into the real world, so i liked it enough to see the sequel. And although i would say I did enjoy this one more, I'd still say it was bad.
"Resident Evil: Apocalypse" is bad on so many levels, but I'd like to start on the good points and end on a negative (I'm in one of those moods).
The best part is that it keeps you entertained, in the first half I was rolling my eyes a bit, thinking that it was terrible, but the second half did wake me up a little bit, there's plenty of action and some edge-of-your-seat moments, however this can be undermined by how daft the story is.
That's the only good part really, that it was entertaining and enjoyable, arguably the most important factor for a film as well, however I did watch "Martyrs" for the fourth time the other night and is quite a contrast to this. Masterpiece to meh.
Now for the bad points :(. There's a lot of them, so get ya cataracts ready! Firstly, the story was a mish mash like in the first one. This whole business of some annoying engilshman finding his daughter was cliché, his accent got on my nerves, as did his daughter's and I'm English myself! There is little to no character development, no one is likable. When someone dies you don't feel anything, in fact you're egging them on to croak! This is where films such as "Dawn of the Dead" and "28 Days Later" succeed as zombie films. They aren't big budget, high concept films and so they don't just blow the budget on blowing things up for the sake of it. They concentrate on the characters, people who you care about, making them emotionally driven films. "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" doesn't build on characters. That's a negative in my book.
The directing and editing was appalling as well! I couldn't believe what I was seeing, whenever anyone shoots a zombie the cameras all over the place flicking back and forth so that you completely miss what was on screen! It really is awful on the editing side.
The acting was bad, the girls just seemed to be there in the male gaze and times have moved on! I'm a male myself, but I just think it's plain sexist to make an attractive female waltz around wearing little to leave to the imagination! We should get past Mulvey's male gaze! In the end Alice ends up fighting bad guys with a towel wrapped around her! Why not go the full hog and have her shooting people naked! Well, it wouldn't be withing Barthes striptease theory then would it? I know I sound like an old man when I say this (I'm actually 16 :S) but I didn't like the use of CGI, the bit in the church was terrible! And a lot of the time it just thought it was too cool by trying too hard. Let's have a man jump out of a helicopter shooting zombies with cool music in slow motion. It's trying too hard and it just isn't "cool". Don't get me wrong, sometimes it was quite "cool" but most of the time they tried too hard.
In the end "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" plays out more as an action movie rather than a horror film. Leave the zombies to my Romero. There was plenty of shooting, but no blood. I like to see my zombie films gory and scary. Believe or not however, I did actually enjoy some parts. I don't think I'd be the only person who rolled my eyes at some ridiculous B-movie machine gun wielding monster in a leather jacket. Was I?