Amp'ed Up But Poor Punch

Rating: 5/10 (19 September 2004)

When the original Resident Evil debuted during the video-game-movie frenzy, it held a lot of promise. The formula for such a movie was almost guaranteed given the detailed and interesting nature of the game itself. And then followed the movie, with the convincing lead, Milla Jovanovich, whose protagonist role in Fifth Element proved she could handle action. The film held plenty of disturbing scenes and good CGI. And at the end we were given the intimation of a sequel, which was delivered in the form of this film, Resident Evil: Apocalypse. But instead of a bunch of zombies locked up in an underground laboratory, they run amuck in Raccoon City, with the T-virus spreading like wildfire.
Obviously, the film could simply enough had Alice (Jovanovich) just go out and wipe out the entire city of zombies, with a little help, of course. But no, this film wanted to flex its muscles and push the envelope. Not only is Raccoon City scheduled for termination via a nuclear attack by the Umbrella Corporation (the bad guys), but it turns out that there is another danger looking in Raccoon City, Nemesis (a biogenetically-engineered killer). And to take things up yet another notch, it turns out Alice has been injected with the T-virus by Umbrella and has superhuman strength as a result. Talk about amp'ing up the plot!
For all her fight scenes in Fifth Element, I could not believe the botch job that was done with Alice's combat scenes against Nemesis, as Umbrella has a final showdown before they send the A-bomb in. The action sequences were so fast and jumbled together that it was impossible to make any clear distinction of what was happening. It's almost pathetic.
As to the ending, I won't spoil it, but be prepared to go round the ferris wheel once again as yet another sequel is hinted at, this one even more preposterous. After watching the ending of the film (if you choose to), ask yourself why Umbrella didn't just "activate" Alice in the lab when she was "spazzing" out on them. Why wait until she was outside the gate...? 5/10