Is better and worst than the original, but still fails to transfer the "Resident Evil" franchise to the screen.

Rating: 4/10 (23 December 2005)

If you find my review of "Resident Evil" you will very quickly discover I didn't like it. Simply because the director took the ideas and settings of Resi, and made his own thing. Eliminating gore, suspense and horror and instead making a lame action film. This film, has more to do with the Resi franchise, but still comes across as more of an action film than a survival horror.
The film, once again, starts off well, with the threat of the virus unleashed and Racoon City being evacuated. However, after that, it goes rapidly downhill. There is actually a lack of zombies in this film (which is odd considering the city is meant to be full of them)and even when they're on screen, they're presented in a dull, laggy collage of moments which is meant to intensify their horrid appearance, but just makes them boring.
The film centres around our main protagonist (super charged naked Milla Javovich - spelling?) as she is now a super hero and is helping a group of survivors escape from the city. It is good to see some of the characters such as Carlos and Jill Valentine appear from the game but they're characters are never explored and one gets the impression they're there to look cool and kick butt instead of having actual depth. But then again, this film has no depth.
At the end of the first film, audiences were treated with the possibility for a sequel involving Nemesis (a rock hard ugly dude in leather.) In the game, he is a force to be reckoned with and is truly terrifying and screamingly brutal. In the film, he comes off VERY cheesy, he is armed to the teeth with explosives and machine guns, and seems to appear, shoot at our main female, then disappear. Very disappointing.
There are some good moments though, such as making Lickers less powerful, making for a fairly entertaining shootout in a church (that is a until an overly dramatised bike scene is introduced), and a school full of zombie children. Although both these ideas are full of potential, they're both streamlined into lame action set pieces and never used to full advantage to creep the audience out.
The ending is the worst for the entire film, in which Nemesis joins up with our heroes to fight the evil Umbrella Corporation. It must be said that these "teaming-ups by former enemies" is a horrid idea, also idealised in Aliens Versus Predator (directed by the same guy who made the first Resi film and also produced this film.)
As I stated before, this film is a lame cheesy action flick - not the survival horror it deserves to be.
For the moment, I am hoping there is not a Resi 3 in the pipeline.