why it was showing at 7:30 last night I'm not sure, but:
"Resident Evi: Apocalypse
AMC Oak View 24 - 500 Seat Theatre (Sold Out)
7:30 p.m.
Well, this was certainly... interesting. I didn't find the first film particularly great, but it was fun enough that I'd tune in during late-night HBO showings. I expected more of the same, and that's basically what I got. No better, no worse.
Apocalypse opens with twenty minutes of completely redundant material for fans of the original. A three-minute recap of the original's events... cut to something else... a scene showing scientists re-opening the Hive, only to die... cut to something else... Alice waking up in her room...
And this is what upset me a little, at first. Remember at the end of the first film, how barren it all seemed? The zombie in the lab? The empty streets? Well, wrong-o buckaroo! Alice was actually let out of the facility, and the citizens of Raccoon City are merely standing outside the gates, trying to leave the city!
Worse, the film is neither scary nor exhilerating in the opening reels. Every single scare in the film is telegraphed (tension... oh, it's nothing... silence... BOO!). And when Alice comes crashing into a church on a motorcycle to ward off three lickers, I literally said, "What the f...?"
However, at a certain point, involving a school and a little girl, the film gains considerable steam. From that point on, it's actually a bit more fun than the original, and the story takes some very nice twists and turns. The ending is generally unpredictable (though a Darth Vader moment is much unappreciated), with a nice twist for fans of Code Veronica.
If the original Resident Evil is a 7/10, this is at worst a 6, and I think repeat viewings will help it out much in the same way as the first film.
P.S. Can we eliminate "off-the-hook smart-ass black guy" from all horror films? Please?
"
