The Curator of Schlock #174 by Jeff Shuster

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

More zombies, more mutant dogs, and more Milla Jovovich!

Yeah, you heard right. Resident Evil month continues here at the Museum of Schlock, this time with more zombies, more mutant dogs, and more Milla Jovavich. Two out of three ain’t bad. Of course, I am referring to more zombies and more of the lovely Milla Jovavich.

I could live without the mutant dogs.

One of them eats a redheaded man in this movie. That made me uncomfortable. Why can’t the redheaded man save the day? Why does he have to end up as dog food?

Tonight’s movie is 2004’s Resident Evil: Apocalypse from director Paul W. S. Anderson. 

The movie opens up with a team of Umbrella scientists opening up The Hive research facility to figure out what went on down there. Maybe they didn’t get the memo of the hordes of ravenous zombies lurking down below. You’d think the evil Umbrella Corporation would like to keep that little experiment under wraps. They send a bunch of black vans to ship all of their top scientists out of town before the zombie outbreak hits the streets of Raccoon City. One of the scientists is played by Jared Harris. He played Lane Pryce on Mad Men.

Sigh.

I miss Mad Men. 

You know, trying to explain the plot of this thing is like trying to explain the plot of The Lord of the Rings. There is just too much going on. We’ve got some new characters this time around. Let’s see, we’ve got Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), a former Raccoon City police officer who was dismissed because she discovered the Umbrella Corporation was experimenting with zombie viruses. We have a pimp named “LJ” who’s played by Mike Epps. He serves as the comic relief.

There’s also Carlos Olivera as played by Oded Fehr, an Umbrella soldier who decides to help the survivors of the Raccoon City outbreak after the Umbrella Corporation leaves him to die. Was Oded Fehr in The Lord of the Rings? No, he was in those Mummy movies, the ones with Brendan Fraser. I liked the first one, but the sequels sucked. I seem to recall Brendan Fraser wrestling a Yeti in the third one. 

Ugh. I’m getting off track. Anyway, everyone’s trying to leave Raccoon City, but the Umbrella Corporation has all of the exits sealed off to prevent the spread of the zombie virus. Jill Valentine holds up in a church along with some other survivors, only to realize the place is infested with lickers, the monster with the long tongue from the first movie.

When all hope seems lost, Alice (Milla Jovovich) crashes a motorcycle through a stained glass window and starts taking care of business (and working overtime). No more lickers, but Alice is about to face here most challenging foe yet.

The Umbrella Corporation has cooked up a monster named Nemesis. He’s a hulking zombie with a computer in his head. Nemesis has to do whatever the Umbrella Corporation tells him to do, and that usually involves killing. Oh, and they gave the Nemesis monster a bazooka too. Will Alice be able to stop the Nemesis monster and rescue the survivors? Will Alice use her kung fu powers against the undead? Will she feed an evil Umbrella scientist to a hoard of zombies? Yes, yes, and yes. Go watch this movie! I kind of recommend it.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.