The Good

Sienna Guillory and Milla Jovovich. An interesting screenplay.

The Bad

This movie is too stylized for it's own good.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse seemed like a good idea because the first Resident Evil was a pretty good film. Depending on your tastes, you either like the present day Zombie movies or you don't. As I don't consider myself exclusive to either camp (maybe I will in a few more years?), I found Resident Evil: Apocalypse to be a decent follow-up. Not the best zombie movie I have ever seen, and certainly not something I think Mr. Romero would approve of, Resident Evil: Apocalypse does it's best not be the film you think it's going to be.

Sadly, what really hurt this movie for me was the stylization. This whole film was entirely too jumpy and disjointed. I don't normally feel this way but the camera moves almost made me nauseous. Still, I was impressed with Paul W.S. Anderson's (he helmed the firstResident Evil) well conceived screenplay, I just wish he would have directed this film as well.

Features

No extras came with this UMD.

Video

Widescreen. No bars on are on the screen while the movie is playing. This movie relies on a lot of blue tones and at first I was genuinely impressed by this. It seemed to evoke a whole other kind of movie and even reminded me of Michael Mann's Heat. Sadly, that is where the comparisons between those two films end. This movie is too jumpy and the way it is edited seems forced. It's as if they shot the film one way and then tried to impose a whole other style on it in the editing room.

Audio

2.0 Dolby Surround. This film is fast moving on my PSP player and it sounded fairly decent. Thankfully, the soundtrack wasn't so large that I felt like I was being knocked over the head. This movie is fairly contained and I appreciated the simple score that seemed to accompany the main characters on their journey. At the end of the day, audio on a movie can either make or break it. Thankfully, the sound on Resident Evil: Apocalypse does nothing to hurt this movie any more than the visual style does.

Package

By placing Milla Jovovich in the center of this cover, the creators of this artwork will turn more than a couple of heads. There are many images from the movie all around here, and emanating behind her are two rays of light. The back gives us more images from the movie, a description of what Resident Evil: Apocalypse is about and some technical specs. All in all, this is the kind of packaging (and the kind of movie) one would expect from a UMD title.

Final Word

Sienna Guillory is without a doubt one of the finest physical specimens we have working cinema today. I am sorry if my comments seem base and shallow, but a large part of why I enjoyed this film as much as I did was because of her. On top of that, there was nothing about her performance that rang false with me. I know that that must sound odd to use that terminology when discussing a movie such as this but I think it applies. Milla Jovovich is good in this role, but the feeling of fascination I felt she had in the first movie almost seems like it gives way to tedium here.

There are many positive aspects to Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Sadly, it's presentation is hindered by a directorial and post production style that gets in the way of the movie itself.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse was released September 10, 2004.