Alice, having escaped from the Umbrella facility, finds Raccoon City overrun with the undead. Along with a group of survivors that includes Jill Valentine, she must find the daughter of Dr. Charles Ashford, who will then provide them with a way out of the city before it is nuked by Umbrella in a cover-up attempt. Meanwhile, they are being hunted by the Nemesis, another one of Umbrella's experiments. When Major Cain reopens The Hive, there is an outbreak of the T-Virus in Raccoon City. The Umbrella leader closes the gateway to the city and traps the survivals with the contaminated zombies, and releases Nemesis to destroy the STARS members to test how powerful this deadly weapon is. Meanwhile, Alice, Jill Valentine and Carlos Oliviera try to find Angela, the little daughter of Dr. Ashford, who is trapped in Raccoon City, as the means to escape from the siege of the city. Don't waste your money on this, people. If you have the DVD already, use it for a beer coaster. Character Development: Not much, but typical for an action movie. Character Appeal: Milla Jovovich plays a kind of female Arnold Schwarzenegger, a grown-up Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She's no great actress, but she's convincing as a zombie-killer. She also has a natural, unaltered-by-plastic-surgery, beauty that makes her very appealing to the male target audience of this movie. Cinematography and Editing: OK overall. However, as in some other recent movies of this genre, you can't really see much when the zombies are being hit by punches, kicks or bullets due to a combination of quick cuts and rapid camera movement. This may bother some people, but I didn't mind it too much. Gore: Surprisingly little for a zombie movie, mainly due to the camera movement and editing mentioned above. Holes in the Plot: Typical for an action movie. The biggest one I noticed—zombies only appear when they are necessary to the plot. At times the city seems completely deserted, not a zombie in sight. At other times, on cue, masses of them appear out of nowhere. My Take: I liked The Apocalypse better than the first movie because it takes place in Raccoon City rather than in the subterranean Hive, which I found to be too monotonous and confining. This movie delivers what it promises—non-stop action from beginning to end. It's not going to win any Academy Awards, but it's good escapist entertainment. After surviving the initial outbreak of the T-virus in the underground Umbrella Corporation facility known as the Hive in Resident Evil , Alice Milla Jovovich awakens in the hospital only to find that the T-virus has escaped, Raccoon City has become infested with zombies and lickers, and the city has been sealed at its perimeter. Realizing also that, while she was recuperating, she has been bio-genetically enhanced with super speed, strength, and agility, Alice joins forces with Umbrella's STARS Special Tactics and Rescue Services team members Jill Valentine Sienna Guillory , Carlos Olivera Oded Fehr , and Nikolai Ginovaeff Zack Ward along with weather reporter Terri Morales Sandrine Holt and street savvy L. Wade Mike Epps to find a way out of Raccoon City before Umbrella nukes it in a coverup attempt. They must first, however, rescue 11-year-old Angela Ashford Sophie Vavasseur , the daughter of Dr Charles Ashford Jared Harris , the scientist who created the T-virus, because he is the only one who can safely evacuate them. Meanwhile, Umbrella has dispatched their secret weapon Nemesis Matthew G. Taylor to track and destroy all STARS personnel. Resident Evil: Apocalypse is based on a screenplay by English film director, Paul W. Anderson, who based his story on a survival horror video game series created by Japanese video game designer Shinji Mikami and released in 1996 as Biohazard in Japan and Resident Evil in English-speaking countries. The movie was subsequently novelized in 2004 by Keith R. Resident Evil: Apocalypse is the second in a series of six movies. It was preceded by Resident Evil 2002 2002 and followed by Resident Evil: Extinction 2007 2007 , Resident Evil: Afterlife 2010 2010 , Resident Evil: Retribution 2012 2012 and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter 2016 2016. Of course, it's always best to watch the first film in a series of sequels, but Apocalypse presents a summation at the beginning that details what happened in the first movie. Following an incident in which the T-virus escaped, everyone in the Hive was killed and turned into zombies. Only Alice and her colleague Matt Addison Eric Mabius managed to survive. Alice and Matt carry the case with the T-virus and antivirus out of the Hive and into the mansion just as the doors go into lockdown. As they're sitting on the floor catching their breath, the wounds caused by the Licker on Matt's arm begin mutating. Suddenly, a group of Umbrella scientists in protective clothing burst into the mansion. Several of them tie Matt to a gurney and take him away, ordering him to be placed in the Nemesis program. Others subdue Alice and take her to Raccoon City Hospital to be placed in quarantine, while discussing how they're going to re-open the Hive to see what went on down there. Days perhaps weeks pass. Alice awakens in a locked room at the hospital, attached to numerous IV lines. She rips them all out and pounds on the window, but no one responds. She picks open the lock with an IV needle and makes her way outside to find the street littered with paper, dead cars, and small fires but no people or bodies. In the final scene, Alice arms herself with a pump action shotgun retrieved from an abandoned police car and stands in the middle of the street, ready for action. Ashford created the T-virus to help his crippled daughter Angie walk again. Unfortunately, this beneficial virus, created to cure dysfunctions and anomalies in the living human body, has disastrous effects on dead ones. This occurrence is explained in the first film where the Red Queen Michaela Dicker reveals that the T-virus goes from the transition process of liquid to gas in a matter of hours. The virus was vented out through the ground after Umbrella reopened the Hive which was located under Raccoon City. Apparently the virus or some form of it has the ability to reanimate dead bodies. Its effects upon vegetation and fungi are unclear, but a clue is given in the third film. Rain Michelle Rodriguez was bitten more than four times on the arms, hands, and neck. Olivera Oded Fehr was only bitten once on the arm. Nemesis is a mutation of Matt Addison from the first film. Yet, he still has some sort of computerized interface, as shown during his attack on the STARS team. The interface is most likely a device similar to a removable mind-control apparatus that appears in one of the sequels and attached to another character. No explanation is given in the films, but there is no reason to believe that they are from the same breed of Licker. Just in case you're a big fan of this flick and you can't get enough, take the German DVD release into consideration because it features an extended version of the movie which runs approximately 4 minutes longer than the R-rated theatrical release. Most of the new scenes feature some story extensions or jokes that help to improve the movie a bit because this extended version is more laid-back than the stiff and well-known action-orgy of the theatrical version. The blast from the nuclear detonation over Raccoon City catches the helicopter evacuating Alice, Jill, Angela, Carlos, and J. Two hours later, Alice is rescued and taken to an Umbrella research station in Detroit, Michigan. No other bodies are recovered in the wreckage. Terri's footage blaming Umbrella for creating the zombies and the T-virus is proclaimed a hoax, and Umbrella releases a coverup story blaming it all on the explosion of a nuclear power plant, noting that Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivera are wanted for questioning. Three weeks later, Alice awakens nude in a water tank. Dr Isaacs Iain Glen orders the water to be purged from the tank and Alice released. Suddenly, a car drives up and Carlos and Jill, disguised as Top Security Umbrella officers, collect Alice and drive away. Alice has already been genetically modified with enhanced strength and abilities at the end of Resident Evil, but she now has additional mental powers, i. Alice did not die and that was not a clone. When Alice died, Umbrella injected her with more of the T-virus, bringing her back to life with psionic powers. They say that she was the actual Alice and, in Resident Evil: Extinction, they confirm that Alice is the original Alice and that they did not start the clones until Extinction. This would explain how Jill knew so much about the zombies and the T-virus. No mention is made of Chris Redfield or any of the other survivors. So the events took place, but the way they happened are drastically changed. In the video games, the Lickers are without eyes their exposed brains hover where the eyes would be , and they rely on their sense of hearing to attack.
