Resident Boredom

Rating: 4/10 (18 September 2008)

Well, here we have another vehicle to demonstrate that the typing error with a skirt, Milla Jovovich, really cannot act. Still; there's a lot to be said for being a casting-couch queen. Especially if your bit of giblet happens to be a director. No matter how wretched your ability, you get a starring role in whatever movie twaddle he happens to be knocking-up.
'Resident Evil' had all of the standard formulaic elements of a modern sci-fi horror work. But at least they were put together in a more-or-less orderly and well-paced narrative. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.
'Apocalypse' however, is a touch too much. It has all of the predictable elements of the earlier outing but with a far more confused narrative. Flesh-eating zombies are so passe as to be boring in themselves. And the various 'engineered' special creatures have little or nothing new to offer over the original. There's gore a-plenty. There's preposterous 'Matrix'-style action and effects, crassly engineered drama, wooden acting, a lacklustre script. The set-pieces are still solid, there's clever lighting and decent sound-engineering, but they alone can hardly rescue what is, after all, an overlong, cliché-ridden turkey starring a drab eastern-European hen. A sort of 'Cheeky Girl' with attitude.
'Resident Evil' had just about enough surprises to justify a watch. But this - well, its back to the casting-couch Milla, and tell your man to stop wasting our time. He might at least listen to you.