Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Plot:
Don’t ask me, I didn’t write this crap.
Comments:
"Fans of the game will love this
movie"
~Steve Chupnick, WBFF TV Fox
"You can't
tell us what to do!"
~Crazy Old Man, The Simpsons
Hey kiddies, 
it’s that time again! Since I’ve
decided that life isn’t disappointing enough on its own, my timely (*cough*)
review of the 2nd Resident Evil movie has arrived. Though I actually
saw the film years ago upon its initial video release, It took me just this long
to fully plumb the depth of its utter crappiness.
If you read my review of the first film, you know how my sick little game works. I’m going to award ‘RE Apocalypse’ a perfect 10, then whittle off a slender half point for every bit of insipidity I see. But enough already with this gibber-jabber, let’s carve some turkey!
10
“Who’s agitatin’ my dots!”
Umbrella opens the Hive. Stupid. They see scary zombie dots on their radar! That’s what you get for being stupid. Then one of the dots breaks away and runs at them. How the hell does that work? Was that supposed to be one of the lickers from the church scene, or was one of the zombies taking Aleve® for the stiffness? (And yes, I’ve used that joke before. It's my favorite. )
9.5
“Thus endeth volume the fifth of the ponderous ‘Model shoots Zombies’ saga.”
At the beginning of this piece of offal, we are treated to a few scenes of exposition recounting the first piece of offal. Yes, that’s right, they are actually shameless enough to pretend the first movie had a plot. Get this, it supposedly had something to do with environmentalism! What was the tree-hugger’s name supposed to be? Matt? Who the hell is Matt? You mean dark haired guy #1?
9.0
“Rar! You sign silly counter-productive socialist legislation, or me eat you! Brahr!”
And while we‘re on the subject, damn them for suggesting that an awesome critter like Nemesis could have ever been some p*ssy environmentalist.
8.5
“Bob, accounting wants to know why you’ve allocated these Receivables funds from January into something called ‘Orphan Melting Project #47 ’.”
If you’re not taking this crap seriously (and why would you) it actually is rather entertaining to watch the parade of sinisterly accented Umbrella suits liquidate civilians with the callous enthusiasm reserved for ersatz James Bondian villains. C.S. Lewis once philosophized that no one serves evil for evil’s sake. (A bit naïve, but generally true.) There are two driving forces behind evil; psychosis and selfishness. (And most suffering under psychosis believe that the evil they do actually serves the greater good!) In real life, most of the dicks you will meet are more like Ken Lay (may he rot in Hell) than Lex Luthor. Just another bit that gives one the impression that these movies were written for (and possibly by) socially retarded 14 year old boys.
8.0
My Funny Valentine
Sienna Guillory’s portrayal of Jill Valentine is a travesty. ( Sienna Guillory? Jeez, can we get a charity fund together for her and Milla to buy them some real American names?) Jill is one of the strongest (both in terms of physical endurance and psychic fortitude) female leads this side of Ellen Ripley. Here Jill is transformed into a simpering baby-bitch in order for us to more readily except Alice as the hero. (I’ll be cold and rotting in the ground, again, before I ever do any such thing.) It’s like watching Rob Schneider play the Dalai Lama or Yoko Ono sing ‘O Holy Night’. It just sickens the soul.
7.5
Pray for death.
Zombies are attacking, let’s hide in a church! After all, there’s no place more secure than a huge empty building with big glass windows.
7.0
“Oh Lord, I’m sorry for all the… Hey look! Naked zombie
strippers!
Screw repentance!”
And while we’re on it, why exactly is the church so empty? While it’s certainly not the best place of physical refuge, seems that many folks faced with an army of walking corpses might start thinking seriously about the next world. This bit might be a subtle jab at organized religion… wait, what the Hell am I on about?! This is Paul Anderson here! The man thinks allegory is a type of tuna. Interestingly enough (or not) one of the deleted scenes for this film features the priest of said church going mental and attacking the survivors. Jeez, a hypocritical/psychotic holy man, that’s new. In 1517, attacking the authority of clergy took some balls. In the 21st century, it’s just another lazy cliché.
6.5
101st Airborne: “Death before surrender!”
USMC: “Never leave a man behind!”
Alice: “Crippled children make great decoys!”
My dislike of Alice is not rooted in unreflective fanboy pettiness, I assure you. I truly despise the little twat. In meditating upon one of the myriad of reasons why, I keep coming back to the scene where she suggests shooting a member of her own party who has become infected. Her reasoning is that it will take less effort to dispose of him now than it will when he becomes zombified. Now dig this; this is the same line of reasoning employed by Nicholai (the antagonist of ‘RE3’) when asked why he murdered an innocent. Interesting that RE fans are expected to embrace a hero who is the ethical mirror of one of the series’ more sociopathic villains. I actually read one reviewer who shall remain nameless (mostly because I genuinely can’t remember who it was) remark that this was rather level-headed of her. On any level, this is false. No human, no matter how weak or unlucky, is worthless. (As a matter of fact, though banished, the unfortunate young man later manages to save the collective carcasses of our merry band.) I suppose preemptive murder could be seen as pragmatic from an Ayn Randian (yeah, more like Ilsa, she-wolf of the S.S.) kinda way which places cold logic above humanity. Then again, so could eugenic sterilization and nutritional cannibalism. (Now you know what I mean when I say I’m proud of never having been overly logical.)
The ever-brave Alice’s suggestion is all the more monstrous when one remembers that there is an antivirus to the T infection. (Remember? Dark-haired guy the third shot up with it near the tram, thereby kindly giving the licker time to take him out of the gene pool.) Fat chance in running across a sample in time to save anyone, but with Umbrella traipsing around all akimbo, you never know what you’ll find.
For all her tough-girl poses, all her affected preening, Alice is far from heroic. In fact, she is a pathetic coward.
6.0
Stupid slut tricks
The scene where Alice drives a motorcycle through a stained glass window is oft cited and with good reason; it’s a perfect encapsulation of everything which is wrong with this series of films. All flash and no substance, it’s only even slightly impressive if you don’t think about it at all. How did she build up to that trajectory? Why wasn’t she cut by the glass? Why did she think this would give her a tactical advantage rather than making her land askance on a pew, snapping her fool spine? How did she know she wouldn’t crush anyone standing underneath the window? (Not that it would probably matter very much to her. I mean, they got to die sometime, right Alice?)
5.5
Wow, “Stupid slut tricks” would be the best name ever for
a rock band.
Or a porno film!
Remember that part where Alice crashes through the window, back-flips off of a speeding motorcycle, sends it flying into the licker, then shoots the gas tank causing both to explode in a huge fireball? That was supposed to be funny, right?
5.0
Comandho
Alice is going into a combat zone. She’s wearing fishnets. Deary, remember than little talk we had last time about hooker clothes not being the best choice for zombie fighting? (Everybody sing!: I ain’t gonna do no, … prostitute laundry!)
4.5
Tom Savini did better when he was five.
The budget for this film is estimated to have been $43,000,000, an $11 million increase over the original, and the zombies still look like sh*t! How much does a box of cream of wheat and a tub of liquid latex cost? Cripes! Is it really so all-fired difficult to make passable, or even good zombies when you have 43 million dollars? When direct to video films have better special effects than a Hollywood blockbuster, something is very, very, wrong.
4.0
It worked for ‘The Blair Witch Project’
In order to hide aforementioned crap effects, Anderson utilizes the typical asinine MTV era herky-blurry “the editor needs Ritalin” camera work. (Well, Alexander Witt as credited director deserves some blame, but no mistake, this entire series is Anderson's baby.) This flick makes a steadily decaying vhs home movie from 1982 look well framed. It’s like an eye exam with dead people.
3.5
"Man, I am a gansta! Thug life! Sho’ nuff…, er, I mean, true dat!"
I tend to think of LA as being a cultural mixing pot, and I’m sure Hollywood types love to consider themselves so much more racially sensitive than the great unwashed. Why is it then that we in the 21st century are still subjected to such crude stereotypical portrayals of African Americans? Does Paul Anderson actually know any black people? Stupid jive directin’ muthu fucca!
3.0
“And my anus runs on MsDOS!”
Can any one tell me why Nemesis, a human mutated into a mercenary meat-puppet creature, has a computer readout in his field of view? (Other than Paul Anderson saw it in ‘Terminator 2’ and thought it would be cool?) Forget writing and directing, can the man even think?
2.5
Be quiet! No, not for strategic purposes, I’m just sick of you already.
Milla and the others are walking along when a nearby payphone rings. She suggests answering it, as the rings will attract zombies. But apparently standing there chatting on the phone wouldn’t.
2.0
“Sure, it sucks to be dead, but I really wish I could get rid of this cold.”
The graveyard scene was a nice idea, but does someone want to tell me how a
virus can infect a decedent that’s been decaying for years? (Let alone buried
in an airtight coffin, inside a concrete vault, six feet underground?!) I will
concede, that this scene does have some precedent in the games, but both of
these instances make sense with a little figuring. In ‘Code Veronica’, the
rising corpses could have either been those of disposed guinea pigs or infected
workers. I’ll also indulge in a little conceit and claim that the graveyard
zombies in ‘RE3’ were most likely victims of the original Arklay mountain
attacks. (There is about a two month gap there, but hey, despite all those
movies you may have seen it takes time to dig your way out of your own grave. Believe me, I know.) The point is, the T (or G, or Veronica) virus makes you a
zombie if you are exposed to it, then die. No virus could possibly
work the other way around.
1.5
Forgetting what happened 3 seconds ago; the Paul Anderson signature touch.
Alice and crew then apparently face-off against an entire cemetery full of zombies, while walking. I don’t know, we cut away too soon for me to remember how they get out of there.
1.0
Nice to see you again. I wish we had met.
Aside from the abomination whose bearing of the name “Jill Valentine” is purely coincidental, there are a few other monikers pointlessly dropped. A few members of the Ashford clan appear, as do the mercenaries Nicholai, Carlos, and Mikhail. Much like “Jill”, they have absolutely no purpose in being that could not have been filled by any random extra. Also like “Jill”, they are one-dimensional cardboard cutouts with zero personality, and certainly no resemblance to their respective characters. I read someone remark that after the first pointless fish shoot, fans would be happy to see some folk from the actual games show up. That would have been true, if it had happened.
0.5
“How will we ever escape from the… wait… what were we running from again?”
‘RE:A’ has been dubbed the zombie film without zombies. Indeed, the undead are absent throughout the bulk of the narrative. In the original ‘Dawn of the Dead’, this occurred so that we could better examine how the protagonists reacted when faced with an existence filled with material luxury but devoid of meaning. Here it happens so that Milla Jovovich can glower at things undistracted.
0.0
"You Died"
“I knew zombie dog. Zombie dog was a friend of mine. You sir, are no zombie dog.”
I think they put some BBQ sauce on a few rottweilers in the first film. It was enough to make me smile. Here, Anderson’s favorite toy of cheap cgi is employed. The dogs now look as realistic as Tara Reid’s tits.
-0.5
Wow,
you're dead.
Cut. Print. Lame.
Much like Nemesis and the other assorted “characters” from the game, Anderson occasionally cribs a few tableaus from the original series. With this little exercise, St. Paulie Girl cements his utter ineptness as a writer/director/creative force of any kind; the film fails to match an aged 32-bit cutscene on any basic level of quality. (The zombie spying his own reflection in a fallen police visor just looks goofy as hell.) After all the crap he’s pulled, does Anderson actually consider this homage? It’s too late to treat the games with respect dingus. And let’s not humor each other, you and/or Alex Witt-less simply don’t have the chops to pull it off.
-1.0
You
are so dead!
‘The Passion of the Tentacle Monster’
After being pursued for countless hours by Nemesis, hearing his gurgling cry of “STARS”, and knowing that his sole reason for existing was my imminent and hideous death, I can find him nothing but terrifying. The idea of him dying as a martyr to save the woman he loves (God only knows for what reason) makes about as much sense as Pyramid Head delivering the sermon on the mount. (Though such a scene still would have been better than the entire second half of ‘Silent Hill’.)
-1.5
You
can stop sucking now, dead boy!
“Ignore the black helicopters, we’re here to help.”
I don‘t know whether it comes from some sort of poorly expressed political angst, or just shoddy, immature plotting, but the ending of this film is pure Art Bell bullsh*t. Seems the big bad ol’ guvmint’ made a deal with Umbrella to cover up the zombification deaths of an entire metropolitan population. Those in possession of documentary evidence, as well as all those who witnessed the live news reports (or do satellite linkups not exist in Anderson world?) are branded as irresponsible conspiracy theorists. Ohhhh, take that Bush administration! If you’re the type of Dale Gribble who thinks Halliburton is grinding up puppies in order to better craft components for vaccination-introduced nano-spy cameras, this ending might be plausible to you. In reality, the blogosphere would have gutted any such cover-up faster than they did Dan Rather’s Word 2000-created “military documents”. (For those of you keeping score, we learn in RE4 that Umbrella was shut down by the feds after the Raccoon City incident. Odd when a goofy anime videogame is more down to earth than a major film.)
-2.0
You
are so hella-dead!
I already used up the ‘Passion’ joke
(Ooh! How about; “That is not dead which is eternally an easy lay.”)
Alice dies in this movie, and they have the balls to reanimate her! (And not in the good, Herbert West way.) Of all the people to bring back; Lincoln, Donald Pleasence, Einstein, Phil Hartman, Descartes, Vincent Price. Why Alice? (Oh, I forgot. Umbrella; not so much with the smartness.) It’s a cruel trick to give me a dead Alice and then take it away!
-2.5
Oy,
you're dead already.
Behold the acting talents of Milla Jovovich!
Milla is naked again in this movie, and hoo-boy is it sexy! She’s sitting down in an over-sized fish tank, covered in science goo, and wretching. Her ribs stick out as her model’s physic is wracked with hacking coughs. All I can think of is the time I had my cat spayed and they had to shave her stomach. Oh, now don't think I'm pulling a John Simon. Despite my distain for her lack of acting ability, I don't really dislike Milla, and will admit that she is very good looking. (Well, that is to say she has a pretty face. She's way too skinny for my tastes, even for a model. Then again, some very confused men love that look.) But oh lordy, there is nothing sexy about this scene.
-3.0
Dude,
you're making me uncomfortable now.
“Eat taser!”, she said with a spark.
Remember that part where Milla gets tasered, and then yanks the live taser darts out of herself and chucks them at the offending taserer, thereby tasering him? That was supposed to be funny, right… …ah, I’m repeating myself. (A bit of trivia for you, the word taser is actually an acronym. It stands for Thomas A. Swift’s electric rifle. Tom Swift was the whiz-kid inventor hero who stared in his own series of early 1900s schoolboy adventure novels. In one of the books, he invents something like a taser. I don’t know the name of the guy who really invented the taser. Also, I like the word taser. Taser taser taser!)
-3.5
Seriously.
I was going to make some spoon-bending joke. No. I can't. My
head hurts.
I'm quitting.
The brought Alice back to life. She has telekinesis now. Telekinesis. How bout that?
*Sigh*
She has telekinesis.
ARE YOU FU@&ING KIDDING ME!?
She has teleki-fu@&ing-nesis!?
GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-4.0
I
don't want to play anymore!
Holy Shoggoth! We’re all the way down to negative four?! I’m not even done with the stupid yet, just too depressed to continue! Has ‘Resident Evil: Apocalypse’ supplanted Conrad John’s ‘Haunted House’ as the most reviled movie on this site? Let’s not jump the gun, I always account for the few scenes I actually like. And hell, since the film’s score has sunk so low, let’s add a full point for every bit of relative competence.
Muppet joins cast, production values increase. Go figure!
Nemesis looks like a guy in a big rubber suit, but still, he’s not cgi!
-3.0
“Now you gonna be da worm face!”Yeah, the rotting zombie head transposed with the “Rest in Peace” epitaph is a bit ham-fisted, but any attempt at irony -and thus actual brain activity- is more than welcome.
-2.0
“Extra! Extra! Milla Jovovich smiles! Face does not crack!”
Alice got emotions! (For about 3 seconds.)
-1.0
Naked zombie strippers
Yeah, it’s cheap and gratuitous, but I’m a man. So am I.
0.0
Wow, double goose eggs. Somehow, that don't seem fair. As ass-stupid as this movie was, it was better than nothing. I mean, the first got 0.5, and that piece of crap was boring as hell. Sure, this was both dumber and louder than Ann Coulter on her monthlies, but at least it was a bit more colorful than the first dreary dropping. Tell you what, let's give the movie one extra point out of pity. But please, don't tell anyone what a softy I am.
1.0