Overall verdict: 5/10
Take the game, make your own character, replace game's main characters with your own
The Good: visuals and tone are true to the original game, intense zombie action, crisp clear cinematography, accurate portrayal of characters from the video game
The Bad: bad special effects, boring protagonist, relegation of game characters to supporting cast,
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The first RESIDENT EVIL movie was a scary fun romp. It's key downside was having nothing to do with the original video games outside of a few characters designs and settings. RESIDENT EVIL APOCALYPSE is the sequel and tries to right the ship by introducing us to some of the characters from the actual video games. Video game characters Jill Valentine, Carlos Olivero and A few others are finally adapted into live action and the results are amazing. The movie finally feels like an actual adaptation, taking the setting of RE2 and 3, as well as many plot points and faithful recreations of key scenes.
The movie starts when the Umbrella corporation opens the underground facility known as the Hive in which the T-Virus outbreak occurs. The virus spreads to nearby Raccoon City (which looks a lot like Toronto Canada) turning the dead into zombies and showing us the chilling societal degeneration into chaos. Amidst this chaos, Umbrella head scientist Doctor Charles Ashford loses his Daughter Angela during a frantic evacuation. As local armed forces attempt to stem the tide of undead, Umbrella corp releases a newly weaponised Alice, having been granted superhuman abilities. In a desperate bid to reunite with his Daughter, dr Ashford manipulates Jill, Carlos and Alice together to rescue his Angela. But a new bioweapon is loose in the city. The hulking, chaingun toting Nemesis.
Alexander Witt in his debut role as director eschews Paul WS Anderson's claustrophobic filming style of the previous movie and instead ops to mimic the "camera" placement of the video games. Gone too are the scares of the first movie replaced by a straight forward action movie plot. The cinematography is crisp and clear, showing the action in full. But that also means it shows some poorly crafted special effects in full.
The infamous cgi Lickers are back, though now half enshrouded in darkness so they do not look as bad as before. On the other end of the spectrum is the Nemesis bioweapon, a hulking behemoth with a mini gun that looks exactly like a big guy in a suit and rubber mask. His platform heels, obviously meant to make the actor look taller, are laughable and makes this lumbering leather bound lunk move stiffly. He looks exactly like he does in the game though, which I guess is another plus, and he is meant to hunt down our main characters. Not that he exudes much air of menace or as if it the audience would care about the main characters.
Protagonist Alice (Milla Jovovich) has developed a hint of personality here which can be summarised as "badass lady". That is it. Still as shallow as a pan with an abrasive snarky attitude, Alice is near invincible with her superhuman agility, strength and cunning, taking the spotlight away from others in what is blatantly becoming Paul Ws Anderson's fan fiction. Which is a pity as Carlos Olivero and Jill Valentine make for much more appealing protagonists. Sienna Guilroy looks exactly like her game counterpart from the outfit to the way she walks and holds a gun. An intriguing backstory is hinted at but never developed on, instead cutting back to Alice since she is the main character.
While I do give points to RESIDENT EVIL APOCALYPSE for being an action packed zombie blockbuster with a plot harkening back to the shallow 80s macho action movies, its underdeveloped but wholly more appealing side characters and insistence on a bland protagonist does hurt the enjoyment. It is a mash up of my 2 Favourite genre of films and more faithful to the games yet it is plagued by Low Budget special effects and horrible antagonists.
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Entertainment: B-
Story: C-
Acting: B-
Characters: B
Music: C-
Replay value: B-
"Brains": D+
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