Alice in Zombie Land

I have long been a fan of the Resident Evil video game series. The first film was a bit of a let down for me in terms of my expectations, so I went into this video game to big screen film with a slight bit of skepticism. Resident Evil Apocalypse turns out to be far superior to the original film in every way and was a very enjoyable movie experience for me.

First off, RE: Apocalypse is rated R, mostly for the graphic violence and harsh language used throughout the film. This isn't a movie for your kids!

RE:A leaves off right after the first RE. We find the Umbrella corporation up to its old tricks. This time they decide to re-open the hive and find out what went wrong. Not a very smart move on their part as they totally underestimate the amount of the T-virus infection in the hive. The zombies/undead overwhelm Umbrellas small team and quickly head out into the city to raise havoc. As chaos breaks loose we are introduced to the original heroine from the RE video games, Jill Valentine. Jill is played by the sexy and sassy Sienna Guillory, who in my opinion does a great job with the character. She provides the perfect amount of eye candy along with a butt kicking zombie stomping attitude that I think fans of the video game will love. She was overall, my most favorite character in the movie.

So Jill walks into Racoon City P.D. and proceeds to pop a few zombies in the head. At this point we are also introduced to L.J., a young black man played by Mike Epps. He has been arrested, but is set free after Jill blasts his handcuffs off with a well placed round. Epps character provides the comedic element to this film with several well placed one liners through out the movie. Choas continues to ensue and Umbrella seals of the city entirely, cutting off all civilian evacuation points. Jill and her partner, along with a young news woman, are forced to flee back into the depths of Racoon City. About this time, Umbrella awakens Alice(Milla Jovovich), who has been genetically altered by Umbrealla scientists and given incredible strength and senses.

Umbrella had sent several specially trained strike teams into the city in order to eliminate the undead threat, but they are quickly overwhelmed and left for dead by the company. Carlos, played by Oded Fehr, leads 2 of his men through the city in an attempt to escape. Meanwhile, Jill and her partner hole up in a church and are attacked by several T-virus mutations. Alice shows up in the nick of time and dispatches the grotesque creatures.

One of Umbrellas lead scientists is torn up over the fact that his daughter has been lost in the city. He makes contact with both Carlos and Alice and agrees to provide them with escape if they rescue his daughter. This brings all of the main characters together for the final climax of the film. Deciding to use Racoon City as a test run for their bio-weapons program, Umbrella unleashes NEMESIS. For those of you that have played RE:3, you will be very pleased with the NEMESIS character in this film. For those of you who haven't, NEMESIS is a large hulk of a monster, equipped with a rocket launcher and a fairly large chain gun(thank god he didn't have this weapon in the game!). He also has cybernetic implants, making him much like the Terminator.

As NEMESIS hunts down the surviving humans, Alice, Jill, Carlos and L.J. fight there way to a school deep in the heart of Racoon City to find the scientists daughter and make their escape. The end of the movie was not what I was expecting and I do not want to spoil what is a great finale. The ending also leaves room for a 3rd film, although I don't see what the plot would be, or which characters it would involve besides Alice and Umbrella again, I must say that the 2nd film leaves me hoping they will make a 3rd of the same or higher quality.

Overall I was very pleased with this movie. The sound effects and special effects were very well done. Explosions and gun shots seemed to leap right out into the audience. There are also some excellent slow motion, matrix type scenes. The hand to hand fight scenes are also very well done. This was supposed to be a horror/film, but I think it falls more on the action side. There are a few moments in the movie that will scare you out of your pants though. The action is almost non-stop from the get go and there is plenty of violence, guns and blood if that's what you are looking for.

The acting in this movie was excellent. As I mentioned before, Guillory gives an envigorating performance as Jill Valentine. She also provides the eye candy throughout the film seeing as Jovovich, while not hard on the eyes at all, is more of the serious, kick butt take names later type character, such as Ripley in ALIENS. Jovovich is perfect for this role however and I think she was just as good in this film as she was in the 5th Element. She provides the right mix of butt kicking along with the occasional smile or soft moment to truly round out her character. In supporting roles, Fehr provides the simple buff male character, enough to keep the ladies interested, but not to shallow that he makes a bad character. Epps provides the comedy through out the film with his one liners and hilarious expressions. There aren't really any other cast members worth mentioning here because most of them become baby food within 5 minutes of screen time.

As mentioned before, this movie is rated R. There is extreme violence which is very graphic. There is a lot of blood spilled in this film and a lot of scary looking undead things wandering around biting peoples arms off. This is not a movie for children by any means, although most of them have probably played the game on playstation by now. Overall I think you will enjoy this movie quite a bit, especially if you are a fan of the original film and the video game series. This is a film that will make my DVD collection for sure! As always I hope you have enjoyed reading this opinion and I welcome any comments or thoughts! Thanks again and happy viewing!