Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Starring Milla Jovovich and Sienna Guillory. Rated 14A.

The last time we saw Milla Jovovich as Resident Evil's sexy but tough-as-nails Alice, she was running up walls and aiming roundhouse kicks at mutant Dobermans. In this sequel to the 2000 video-game spinoff, she's running down skyscrapers and shooting mutant Dobermans right in the head. But it's basically the same old 90-minute zombie shoot as before, just with louder guns and bigger explosions. And more shooting sparks. There's a shitload of shooting sparks.

As if they hadn't learned enough from the chaos and carnage that ensued the last time a deadly virus got loose, the shadowy Umbrella Corporation reopens the Hive, its secret underground biochemical-research facility. Before you can say Yawn of the Dead, the entire surrounding area, Raccoon City, is teeming with ravenous gangs of zombies, with plenty of innocent citizens and on-the-job cops left to fend for themselves. Fortunately for the uninfected folk, Alice is trapped too, and she's been enhanced by the Corp. to kick way more zombie/soldier/monster butt than before.

Her superhuman skills come in handy when she rides a motorcycle through a huge stained-glass window to save two elite cops and an ambitious TV reporter from being devoured (or licked to death) by some long-tongued mutant beasties. The foursome then teams up and tries to save the young daughter of an Umbrella Corp. scientist who promises to pluck them out of Raccoon City before an imminent nuclear blast turns everyone into roadkill.

As if Alice and her cohorts didn't have enough to worry about, those corporate scumballs at the UC have also used their sinister biogenetic know-how to create a hulking, gooey-faced monster called Nemesis that brandishes a state-of-the-art machine gun designed to obliterate anyone in its path. If only the poor idiots firing back hadn't forgotten the one and only rule of zombie warfare: shoot the fucker in the head!

Comments