Wait, what? This was actually... okay!

Rating: 5/10 (7 March 2008)

I really, *really* didn't like the original Resident Evil movie, so quite why I decided to pick up a DVD triple-pack of all three movies in the series I'm not sure. Perhaps I was in the mood for something stupid; real MST3K fodder for a boozy weekend. Or maybe it was because it was cheap. Either way, I knew what to expect from rewatching the first film (basically, nothing) and had even lower expectations for the sequels.
So I was rather surprised that I quite enjoyed Resident Evil: Apocalypse. It's not *good*, not by any stretch of the imagination. Like the videogames on which it's based, 'cheesy' would be as good a word as any to describe it. But the difference is that the games took themselves fairly seriously, whereas Apocalypse knows exactly what it is - a big dumb action movie based on an entertaining but rather silly series of horror games - and embraces it. So it's filled with references to the games, but unlike the first film's tenuous background nods they actually play a part in the story... which is just as nonsensical as the games themselves, but knowingly so (and thankfully lacking in fetch-quests for emblems!).
Witt doesn't really bring anything especially interesting as a director (Paul WS Anderson, here only writing and producing rather than directing, may not be a great storyteller, but he at least has some visual flair) and the 15 certificate saps any impact from the action - like the original, it's a zombie movie with very little blood. But overall it's a definite improvement on the first film... which places it squarely in the 'average' category.
Will I be surprised again by Resident Evil: Extinction? I guess I'll find out soon enough...