Resident Evil: Apocalypse «
R, 94m. 2004
Cast & Credits: Milla Jovovich (Alice), Sienna Guillory (Jill Valentine), Oded Fehr (Carlos Olivera), Thomas Kretschman (Major Tom Cain), Sophie Vavasseur (Angie Ashford), Razaaq Adoti (Sgt. Peyton Wells), Jared Harris (Dr. Ashford), Mike Epps (L.J.), Sandrine Holt (Terri Morales), Matthew G. Taylor (Nemesis). Screenplay by Paul. W.S. Anderson. Directed by Alexander Witt.
R, 94m. 2004
Cast & Credits: Milla Jovovich (Alice), Sienna Guillory (Jill Valentine), Oded Fehr (Carlos Olivera), Thomas Kretschman (Major Tom Cain), Sophie Vavasseur (Angie Ashford), Razaaq Adoti (Sgt. Peyton Wells), Jared Harris (Dr. Ashford), Mike Epps (L.J.), Sandrine Holt (Terri Morales), Matthew G. Taylor (Nemesis). Screenplay by Paul. W.S. Anderson. Directed by Alexander Witt.
"Resident Evil: Apocalypse" is an endlessly loud shoot-em-up equivalent to a violent video game which isn’t very far from the truth since this follow-up to 2002’s Resident Evil is really based on a popular computer game. The plot is not so much an actual story as it is “the object of the game” where the handful of one-dimensional characters must go through several precarious situations before calling themselves the winner. Such situations include roaming the night streets of Raccoon City, inhabited by flesh eating zombies and infected rabid salivating dogs. The “object of the game” has the characters searching for a young girl who is the daughter of a wheelchair bound scientist whose company called the Umbrella Corporation is responsible for unleashing a deadly virus throughout the city.
I equate the film’s storytelling format to the "Star Wars: Rebel Assault" game I played on an Apple computer years ago where the first five minutes of each segment was dedicated to watching the characters converse with each other as they flew through space. Then the rebel pilots run into enemy forces and the viewer becomes the game player where I had to shoot down as many Imperial ships as possible in order to get to the next step.
The difference between that game and the film, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, however, is under my control I could switch off the Rebel Assault CD-ROM whenever I wanted to. That’s a luxury I wished I had watching "Resident Evil: Apocalypse." Then again, no one was holding a gun to my head forcing me to keep my eyes glued to the big screen. I was technically still in charge of my own destiny and could have so chosen to walk out long before the credits rolled. If I had done so, however, I wouldn’t have been able to write this review.
When it comes to sequels, it isn’t unusual for one to want to familiarize themselves with the predecessor before seeing the latest one. I never saw "Resident Evil" and now after seeing this sequel, I am not only thankful I didn’t but was also relieved to know the first few minutes of “Apocalypse” reveal much of what happened previously.
The survivors include among them, a demoted gun-toting female officer (Sienna Guillory), a weather reporter (Sandrine Holt) who sees this tragedy as her ticket to winning an Emmy, and an Umbrella tactical officer (Oded Fehr) who when one of his team asks why the company left them out to die with the zombies, says they’re “expendable assets and we’ve just been expended.” They are led to safety by Alice (Milla Jovovich), a former security guard for the company who reveals early on how there was “an accident.”
There is not a single moment of originality or creativity here. The script was written by Paul W.S. Anderson whose directorial credits include a number of B rated sci-fi/horror/action-adventure movies like "Mortal Kombat" (1995), "Event Horizon" (1997) with Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne, the little seen Soldier (1998) with Kurt Russell, and the recent "AVP: Alien Vs. Predator" (2004). Seeing "Mortal Kombat" and "Event Horizon" I can tell Anderson isn’t in the filmmaking business to make the critics happy. He wants to make movies and write screenplays that appeal to a wide range of young audiences. That’s all fine and dandy. Trouble is his ideas aren’t so much inspired-by as they are rip-offs of better films.
Watching "Resident Evil: Apocalypse", I found it hard not to be reminded of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead trilogy (1968-1985) or any movie for that matter dealing with flesh-eating zombies that would include "28 Days Later" (2002) and even the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004). As an added bonus, the filmmakers even throw in an ugly mutated creature with large teeth that bears an obvious resemblance to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator from the cyborg killing machine movies (1984-2003). He, or I guess I should say “it,” carries a shoulder armored rocket launcher in one hand and a machine gun styled assault weapon in the other and is just as difficult a foe the characters have a hard time killing.
The film appeals to only three kinds of viewers. Those who love when their favorite video games are turned into ninety-minute movies, those with very little imagination, and those who get off seeing a couple of take charge female characters in short skirts, high heeled sandals and leather boots or wearing barely nothing at all who bust through the doors of empty high school hallways or church windows on motorcycles with guns blazing. Or, they just want to see Milla Jovovich.
I won’t deny the fact that she is quite an attractive woman judging by the Revlon television commercials I have seen her in. I liked her in "The Fifth Element" (1997) with Bruce Willis, which unlike "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" I found to be a tribute to several science fiction movies made before it. Her character, Alice, in “Apocalypse” is a born “Rambolina” who doesn’t even yell out in pain after popping a couple of fingers back into place when she injures her hand.
She’s Supergirl who not only catches speeding bullets with her bare hands but throws them back at the person who shot them with the same amount of speed. She runs down the side of skyscrapers with a cable attached to her waist kicking the you know what out of corporate soldiers and stares alluringly and telepathically into a set of video surveillance cameras that cause a security guard’s eyes to ooze out blood.
Her character alone is what saves this movie from being a complete waste of celluloid trash. I suspect were it not for Jovovich, "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" would be exactly what one character says in the film that evolution is dead. She is the only one who brings any life or personality to this picture. This film would be what doctors call “DOA” as in “dead on arrival” were it not for her.
©9/17/04
I equate the film’s storytelling format to the "Star Wars: Rebel Assault" game I played on an Apple computer years ago where the first five minutes of each segment was dedicated to watching the characters converse with each other as they flew through space. Then the rebel pilots run into enemy forces and the viewer becomes the game player where I had to shoot down as many Imperial ships as possible in order to get to the next step.
The difference between that game and the film, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, however, is under my control I could switch off the Rebel Assault CD-ROM whenever I wanted to. That’s a luxury I wished I had watching "Resident Evil: Apocalypse." Then again, no one was holding a gun to my head forcing me to keep my eyes glued to the big screen. I was technically still in charge of my own destiny and could have so chosen to walk out long before the credits rolled. If I had done so, however, I wouldn’t have been able to write this review.
When it comes to sequels, it isn’t unusual for one to want to familiarize themselves with the predecessor before seeing the latest one. I never saw "Resident Evil" and now after seeing this sequel, I am not only thankful I didn’t but was also relieved to know the first few minutes of “Apocalypse” reveal much of what happened previously.
The survivors include among them, a demoted gun-toting female officer (Sienna Guillory), a weather reporter (Sandrine Holt) who sees this tragedy as her ticket to winning an Emmy, and an Umbrella tactical officer (Oded Fehr) who when one of his team asks why the company left them out to die with the zombies, says they’re “expendable assets and we’ve just been expended.” They are led to safety by Alice (Milla Jovovich), a former security guard for the company who reveals early on how there was “an accident.”
There is not a single moment of originality or creativity here. The script was written by Paul W.S. Anderson whose directorial credits include a number of B rated sci-fi/horror/action-adventure movies like "Mortal Kombat" (1995), "Event Horizon" (1997) with Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne, the little seen Soldier (1998) with Kurt Russell, and the recent "AVP: Alien Vs. Predator" (2004). Seeing "Mortal Kombat" and "Event Horizon" I can tell Anderson isn’t in the filmmaking business to make the critics happy. He wants to make movies and write screenplays that appeal to a wide range of young audiences. That’s all fine and dandy. Trouble is his ideas aren’t so much inspired-by as they are rip-offs of better films.
Watching "Resident Evil: Apocalypse", I found it hard not to be reminded of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead trilogy (1968-1985) or any movie for that matter dealing with flesh-eating zombies that would include "28 Days Later" (2002) and even the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004). As an added bonus, the filmmakers even throw in an ugly mutated creature with large teeth that bears an obvious resemblance to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator from the cyborg killing machine movies (1984-2003). He, or I guess I should say “it,” carries a shoulder armored rocket launcher in one hand and a machine gun styled assault weapon in the other and is just as difficult a foe the characters have a hard time killing.
The film appeals to only three kinds of viewers. Those who love when their favorite video games are turned into ninety-minute movies, those with very little imagination, and those who get off seeing a couple of take charge female characters in short skirts, high heeled sandals and leather boots or wearing barely nothing at all who bust through the doors of empty high school hallways or church windows on motorcycles with guns blazing. Or, they just want to see Milla Jovovich.
I won’t deny the fact that she is quite an attractive woman judging by the Revlon television commercials I have seen her in. I liked her in "The Fifth Element" (1997) with Bruce Willis, which unlike "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" I found to be a tribute to several science fiction movies made before it. Her character, Alice, in “Apocalypse” is a born “Rambolina” who doesn’t even yell out in pain after popping a couple of fingers back into place when she injures her hand.
She’s Supergirl who not only catches speeding bullets with her bare hands but throws them back at the person who shot them with the same amount of speed. She runs down the side of skyscrapers with a cable attached to her waist kicking the you know what out of corporate soldiers and stares alluringly and telepathically into a set of video surveillance cameras that cause a security guard’s eyes to ooze out blood.
Her character alone is what saves this movie from being a complete waste of celluloid trash. I suspect were it not for Jovovich, "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" would be exactly what one character says in the film that evolution is dead. She is the only one who brings any life or personality to this picture. This film would be what doctors call “DOA” as in “dead on arrival” were it not for her.
©9/17/04
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