The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 160 Days to go: 154
Movie #223: Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Did you know there are five of these frigging things? Soon to be six. We only own the two, and my husband wants the rest of them, but I remember we watched the third one on demand several years ago and I’m convinced they’re pretty much all the same movie from here on out. They’re not bad movies, per se. I mean, they’re not good movies, but they can be kind of fun and entertaining in their way as long as you turn off the logic center of your brain for an hour and a half. Still doesn’t mean there’s much point in owning any more of them.
Anyway.
Welcome to Raccoon City, where all the hot lady fighters wear ridiculously skimpy clothing. I give you disgraced detective — Disgraced why? Who knows. Details are so last season. — Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), who is introduced by way of the tried-and-true method of revealing her at first not by her face but in stages of various provocative body parts. When Detective Valentine goes out for a tough night of zombie killing on her way to flee the city, she wears crazy thin stilettos, a micro mini and a tight strapless top (under her gun holster, obviously). You know how Robocop was a robot merged with a cop? Jill Valentine is like Strippercop.
Raccoon City is unfortunately infested with zombies (as we learned at the end of the last movie, which we didn’t really need to watch because the helpful synopsis at the start of this one was like a hundred times more informative and easier to follow) and everyone is trying to get out. But evil Umbrella Corporation overlord Cain (Thomas Kretschmann) locks the gates — free advice: never live in a walled-off city with lockable gates — and traps everyone inside to prevent the infestation from spreading. And as an added measure, he’s going to nuke the whole joint, but not before he plays a little Superbeing Hunger Games with dear old Alice (Milla Jovovich) and some gross mutated thing that used to be Matt from the first film. Luckily, the ridiculous leathery skin costuming they’ve got on this Nemesis project killing machine means they didn’t have to actually cast Eric Mabius again. Maybe this was when he was on Ugly Betty. (I derived all this information after the fact. They don’t actually spell it out or make it at all clear beforehand. Why get bogged down with plot?)
So Jill Valentine and some other people (a reporter, a couple S.W.A.T. — I mean “S.T.A.R.S” guys — and a regular Joe) are trapped inside the city, trying to escape with their lives and having varying levels of success. They’re joined by Alice, have a run-in or two with the Nemesis mutant, and get contacted by Mad Scientist Dr. Ashford (Jared Harris) offering them a way out if only they’ll rescue his daughter.
Alice actually shows up at the beginning, giving us a rundown of the previous film, then we see her escape from that medical facility again, then she kind of goes away and returns periodically, to the point where I was sort of consciously wondering where the hell the lead went. But then it turns out she’s been infected with the virus on purpose and it turned her into a super fighter (not that you have any chance of knowing this until they’re like, “oh by the way,” but whatever), so that’s when Cain has his death match between Alice and Nemesis mutant. Joke’s on him, though, because not only does she refuse to kill him when she realizes it’s Mutant Matt, but he refuses to kill her too. Aw!
They escape and Alice’s last act is to throw her body in front of a flying piece of debris to save the little girl, only it’s not her last act because when Umbrella Corporation people find her body, they put her in a Luke Skywalker tube of regenerating fluid — naked, of course, as per her contract — and she wakes up even stronger than before. (One of the techs says her physical and mental capacity is developing at a “geometric rate” which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but what do you expect from a movie that names its umbrella corporation The Umbrella Corporation based out of goddamned Raccoon City?) Now she can murder people with her mind! She escapes again, into the waiting SUV of Jill Valentine and friends, though how they knew she was escaping right then is beyond me. Still, they might not have escaped at all if not for the head doctor letting them go and then “activating” her. DUN DUN DUN!
More stuff probably happens in the next eleventy quillion sequels, but I don’t have to watch those.
Viable Option 