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REVIEW: Resident Evil: Apocalypse

I decided to start writing movie reviews again for no readily apparent reason. Here:

Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Dir: Alexander Witt, Writer: Paul W.S. Anderson, Starring: Milla Jovovich

Years of dedicated study have led me to believe that transforming a video game into an actual good movie would take a genius, and unfortunately for us, neither writer Paul W.S. Anderson nor director Alexander Witt is it. They bring us a film version of the popular zombie-killing extravaganza that is clunky and awkward, attempting to find a compromise between action-horror film and laundry list of recognizable (and thus marketable) icons from the game.

RE:A opens with a catchy credits sequence that fills us in on the events of the last film, and then wastes no time setting up its premise: the bustling metropolis of Raccoon City becomes infected with the deadly T virus, which turns its victims into the usual flesh-eating zombies. Thus the usual Heartless Authorities build a wall around the city, leaving just one exit, and begin evacuating the citizens; but, of course, the virus breaks out in the crowd and the Authorities, being Heartless, close the gate and seal everyone, civilians and cops included, into Raccoon City to await their shambling undead fate.

You will of course have already noted that your typical action-horror requirement to suspend disbelief or logic or the very laws of storytelling itself is going to get a real workout here. Several questions spring immediately to mind: why is the government allowing the head of Umbrella Corp., the Heartless Commercial Entity originally responsible for the T virus, to orchestrate this evacuation? Is it really a good idea to have just the one exit there, what with the giant panicky mob and such? How'd that wall get built so fast? Why does no one try, say, climbing a ladder once the H.A.s close the gate? And so on. My migraine and I assure you, however, that if you allow such questions to trouble you throughout the movie, you will become cranky like a reanimated flesh-eating police dog.

And, you know, I watch a lot of movies that don't make much sense, so that isn't even the most important thing here. If RE:A had simply skipped through these little foibles with some lighthearted humor, a little wink that, yeah, sure, this is all kind of silly, but we're here to watch Milla Jovovich blow shit up on a motorcycle, okay, then that would have worked fine for me. Unfortunately, the movie is, as I said, clunky, and it's too concerned with setting up its unlikely premise to give us a little nod. We are dragged through the opening like it's a dirty job, but someone's got to suffer through it, and unfortunately this is a trend that will be going strong for the rest of the movie.

In another inexcusable plot-pander, we are introduced to the main characters as a scientist whose daughter is trapped inside Raccoon City tracks them on closed-circuit TV, looking for a suitably badass team to help get her out. And so, we meet Badass Lady Cop, Good Guy Cop Who Will Become Zombie Fodder (c'mon you knew it already), Comic Relief Jive-Talkin' Guy, Ambitious Lady Reporter, and...Different Kind of Good Guy Cops Who Will Become Zombie Fodder, because apparently this imagination-impaired movie couldn't think of any more stereotypes to embody. And of course, there is Alice, played by hottie Milla Jovovich, former head of security for Umbrella Corp., survivor of the last movie, recently reawakened from a Heartless Experimenter-induced slumber and infected with the T virus herself, which thanks to Heartless Experiments gives her superpowers instead of the insatiable lust for human fleeeeeesh. Not a bad deal!

These folks all run into each other in a series of laborious coincidences as, without further ado, and also without joy or bliss, we are treated to 60 minutes or so of set pieces which have the effect of someone shouting dolefully into a bullhorn: "ATTENTION FANBOYS: GET YOUR CHECKLISTS. HERE IS THE 'CHURCH' LEVEL. HERE IS THE 'SCHOOL' LEVEL. HERE ARE THE ZOMBIE DOGS. HERE IS THE 'NEMESIS' BOSS. HERE IS MILLA GETTING HER SHIRT RIPPED. PERHAPS I CAN INTEREST YOU IN PURCHASING THE DVD OR SOME RELATED MERCHANDISE!"

Along the way, we lumber strenuously through several subplots with no sense of pacing or tension, as the important thing here, it becomes ever more abundantly clear, is to just get through this while racking up the requisite number of action points. The people you'd expect die, the usual character violations occur (like leaving a truck door open when any moron would know better, especially if said moron is a Badass Lady Cop on the run from zombies, I mean COME ON), there is the requisite final battle with the standard shocking revelations and terrible betrayals, blah blah, frankly I'm too disenchanted by this point to even bitch about the utterly ridiculous setup of that last big fight. Okay, no I'm not: if you were a Heartless Scientist who had performed a lengthy, costly and totally illegal experiment on human subjects, would you risk destroying at least half of the results of said experiment in an uncontrolled battle royale, just for kicks? Argh, there goes that migraine again.

And after the movie ends...it doesn't. Because we need to see fifteen minutes of setup for Resident Evil: Afterlife, already slated for 2006, presumably in the hopes of getting some of that, you know, storytelling that seems to annoy the filmmakers so much out of the way.

It's not that there wasn't anything cool in this movie. I like badass women with superhuman strength, and even if Milla's sad little I'm-about-to-cry croak does drive me up a tree, she's good at the action stuff when she's not talking. I like hordes of zombie schoolchildren - who doesn't? I liked a lot of things in this movie, but the things themselves do not a movie make, and the makers didn't seem to grasp that the structure - the pacing, the plot, the characters - is what makes a movie fun to watch, not slavish presentation of items that gamers will expect to see.

One and a half gears out of five - it didn't hurt to watch...except for the Question Migraine...but lost points for not even trying to be an actual movie.

Posted by hilatron at January 9, 2005 09:32 PM