FILM REVIEW: RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE

By Robert K. Elder

Chicago Tribune Staff Writer

1-1/2 stars

The sequel "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" might be justified as "mindless fun" if it weren't for the acute lack of fun in its 93 minutes.

As video game movies go, this one contains less plot and character development than Pac-Man. Sure, there are a bunch of explosions and shoot-'em-ups, but nothing outshines the first "Resident Evil" - and improving on an original is the only real reason to green-light a sequel.

Milla Jovovich returns as Alice, a former security officer for the Umbrella Corporation, developer of a biological warfare virus that reanimates dead cells. In the 2002 original, the virus broke free, turning an underground lab into zombie central. In this installment, Alice wakes up after her topside escape, only to find herself genetically altered and the surrounding city infested with the flesh-eating undead.

All this and she's wearing a towel.

For testosterone-saturated adolescent boys, perhaps the combination of scantily clad women, automatic weapons and mutated monsters would provide an intoxicatingly seductive cocktail of cinematic ecstasy. But after the first 10 minutes, after the sugar rush of violence wears off and Jovovich finds appropriate attire, there's not much else to keep our attention.

There's a subplot about a lost little girl, the daughter of Umbrella's star scientist, Dr. Charles Ashford (Jared Harris). Otherwise, director Alexander Witt follows a pedestrian screenplay by Paul W.S. Anderson (director of the original "Resident Evil" and producer of this one). Jovovich and company just bounce from set to set, with little direction or motivation, except whatever forces them into the next firefight.

Witt weaves a few more video game conventions into his narrative, including the addition of new (expendable) characters and the pyramid structure of facing increasingly deadly adversaries. Sienna Guillory joins the franchise as Jill Valentine, a cop in fashionable Lara Croft colors with a shoot-first-get-your-phone-number-later philosophy to survival.

Jovovich remains the star, however, with perhaps the least dialogue of any character this side of Kurt Russell in "Soldier," another Anderson movie. Witty banter wouldn't get Alice very far here, though, especially when she goes fist-to-fist with a humanoid mutant that looks uncannily like the mascot of '80s metal band Iron Maiden.

What makes "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" disposable isn't its reliance on zombie movie conventions, but rather its unwillingness to expand them. With "28 Days Later" and even "Shaun of the Dead," the undead genre remains alive and well, but no thanks to this particular apocalypse.

"Resident Evil: Apocalypse"

Directed by Alexander Witt; screenplay by Paul W.S. Anderson; photographed by Derek Rogers, Christian Sebaldt; production design by Paul D. Austerberry; edited by Eddie Hamilton; music by Jeff Danna; produced by Anderson, Jeremy Bolt, Don Carmody. A Sony Pictures Entertainment release; opens Friday, Sept. 10. Running time: 1:34. MPAA rating: R (nonstop violence, language and some nudity).

Alice - Milla Jovovich

Jill Valentine - Sienna Guillory

Carlos Olivera - Oded Fehr

Major Cain - Thomas Kretschmann

Dr. Charles Ashford - Jared Harris

L.J. - Mike Epps