♆♆♆Resident Evil♆♆♆Resident Evil: Extinction♆♆♆

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Remember when I said I hoped the sequel to Resident Evil would maintain the adrenaline rush? Well, Resident Evil: Apocalypse takes its predecessor’s existing drive and multiplies it by ten! Surely, this means Apocalypse is ten times better than the original, right? Wrong.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse could have very easily been titled Resident Evil and the World’s Most Distracting Pant Leg. It SHOULD have been titled Resident Evil: Nemesis since its mostly about NEMESIS (and to match the name of the third game)! Speaking of the ABOMINATION, he looks perfect! They used almost all practical effects to really bring the monster to life. The problem was giving him a sympathetic side. I get that they wanted him to retain a human aspect but when your huge, murderous villain is named fucking NEMESIS and looks like this…

…you don’t need the character to be anything more than an object of pure terror!

Another distracting element (other than the pant leg) was the way Alice presents herself. In the first film she barely knows what she is doing. She lost her memory and most of her fighting skills when she got knocked out. She slowly begins to regain her abilities but even then she never becomes a showoff. In Apocalypse, Alice introduces herself by jumping a motorcycle through a stained glass window into a church only to back flip off and blow the bike up in a monster’s face. Not only is she a gigantic showoff, she seemingly revels in it. Also, how the hell did she get that good at killing in such a short amount of time? I understand the Umbrella Corporation was experimenting on her but she doesn’t come off as “enhanced”, she comes off as an indestructible and unbeatable GOD. It makes the film less fun when you know the main character can’t lose.

Mix these mishaps together with poorly shuffled-in major characters from the games (mainly Jill!) and you get a movie that barely passes. I give it a passing rating only because of the encounters with Nemesis since he is what most fans of the franchise wanted to see on the big screen. If you can sift through the bad acting and some laughable action scenes you might be able to STOMACH Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

3 showy karate moves out of 5

★★★☆☆