It's certainly bad news for cinema when a video game gets turned into a full-length feature film. It's worse when that film turns out to be expectedly clunky and even worse when, despite its clunkiness, it becomes a big hit. Now, if that's not enough, brace yourself for some more bad news: the video game-turned-bad film, Resident Evil, now has a sequel, Apocalypse, which is just as terrible and poses a huge danger of becoming yet another box-office hit.
If one were to go by cliches, Apocalypse is strictly for hyper-testosteroned teenaged men who get excited at the very sight of huge weapons (no puns intended). All that the film has is eye-popping action, mindless violence, shooting and shouting of the kind that would do Sunny Deol proud. For the audiences it would make for some truly wearisome viewing. The action gets too exaggerated and over-the-top and there's not a wee bit of ingenuity or imagination in the story-telling to offer any creative respite. And they are calling this new genre of films "action-horror", with biotechnology pitched as the source of all the terror.
There are some cardboard characters and a wisp of a plot. Alice (Jovovich) is one of the two survivors of the biochemical disaster in Part 1. We encounter her in Raccoon City which has literally become a wasteland after being accidentally hit by a deadly virus.
Alice herself is a mutant of sorts, having been subjected to biogenetic experimentation by Umbrella Corporation. This endows her with superhuman strengths to survive in and escape from the City of the Undead. Her ally in the adventure is Jill Valentine (Guillory) a demoted member of Umbrella's Special Tactics and Rescue Services and the biggest enemy is a heavily armed assassin, Nemesis. Any resemblances to Lara Croft Tomb Raider, suffice to say, are purely coincidental.
Go for Apocalypse if and only if you are a die-hard fan of leggy Superwoman Jovovich last seen in Luc Besson's Fifth Element. Otherwise it'll work only if you don't think of it as a film but merely as a Playstation.
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Courtesy: Film Information
