Role: Alice
Genre: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson
Written by: Paul W. S. Anderson
Running time: 94 min
Budget: $45 million
Release Date: September 10, 2004
Additional Cast: Sienna Guillory, Eric Mabius
Synopsis
Picks up where the first film (Resident Evil) ended. General Cain has ordered The Hive to be reopened, and in doing so contaminates all of Raccoon City, a city of the dead, with Alice (Milla) stuck in the middle. Now, along with other surviors, Alice and Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) must fight to survive and escape the nightmare. But there is a new threat: Matt Addison (Eric Mabius) has fully mutated into a seemingly unstoppable creature, codenamed Nemesis, who will stop at nothing until everything around it is dead.
Production
The film was shot in Ontario, Canada, with Toronto and its surrounding suburbs being a stand-in for Raccoon City.Toronto City Hall and Exhibition Place (namely the National Trade Centre) were used as Umbrella’s worldwide headquarters, while the logos of Canada’s largest banks feature prominently in the skyline shots of the city, and the Prince Edward Viaduct was used to represent Ravens’ Gate.It was originally feared that production would be shut down due to the 2003 SARS outbreak in Toronto;however, production resumed, with filming ending in October 2003.The film was also shot at the Hamilton Cemetery in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada..
The film was planned for an October 31, 2003 release, although was pushed back to September 10, 2004 due to the 2003 SARS outbreak.In late 2003, a teaser trailer was released titled Regenerate and was directed by Marcus Nispel. The preview was noted for being reminiscent of the Olay product Regenerist advertisements and can be viewed in RealMedia and Windows Media formats.In May 2004 it was revealed the trailer would actually be part of the film.Milla Jovovich’s official website later released promotional images that showed Alice in several scenes from the film.
The theatrical trailer was released on Yahoo! Movies on July 7, 2004 and prior to the film’s release, two albums for Resident Evil: Apocalypse were released. The first was the soundtrack which was released August 31, 2004 and featured music from the film.The second was the film’s score, which was released in late 2004 and was composed by Jeff Danna and performed by the London Philharmonia Orchestra. A day before the film’s release, numerous props from the film were auctioned on the website Premiere Props.The film opened at number one in North America on September 10, 2004 and received an estimated $23.7 million on its opening weekend and $129,394,835 worldwide.
The film was released on DVD in North America on December 28, 2004. Releases on UMD and Blu-ray Disc formats followed on April 19, 2005 and January 16, 2007, respectively. The film was released in Australia and New Zealand on March 16, 2005 and February 2005 in UK. The release included an audio commentary by the director Alexander Witt, producer Paul W. S. Anderson, and actress Milla Jovovich. The release included 20 deleted scenes with numerous outtakes and a featurette titled “Game Over: Resident Evil Reanimated”. 6 other featurettes were included which covered behind the scenes of the film’s production. The blooper reel included on the DVD edition is not included on the Blu-ray edition of the film.
Critical Response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 19% of 133 critic reviews are positive, which makes this film the lowest-rated entry in the series. The site’s critics consensus reads: “Resident Evil: Apocalypse has lots of action, but not much in terms of plot or creativity.” According to Metacritic, which sampled 26 reviews and calculated a score of 36 out of 100 based on 26 reviews, the film received “generally unfavorable reviews”. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on a scale of A to F.
Leonard Maltin rated the film a “bomb” in his book Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide and called it a “tiresome” sequel that ended up playing more like a remake. Roger Ebert gave the film a score of half a star out of four, calling it “an utterly meaningless waste of time” that lacked any wit or imagination and also failed to provide entertaining violence or special effects. He subsequently named the film the eighth worst film of 2004. Carrie Rickey of The Philadelphia Inquirer gave the film one star out of four, concluding that even for people interested in the biological horror genre, Apocalypse was “pretty generic stuff”.
Dave Kehr of The New York Times gave the film a positive review, praising Anderson’s screenplay and describing Witt’s direction as “fast, funny, smart and highly satisfying in terms of visceral impact”. M. E. Russell of The Oregonian said, “The bad news? The movie is monumentally stupid. The good news? It’s a fun kind of stupid”. The A.V. Club’s Nathan Rabin said that it progressed too slowly to be considered a good film, “but when Jovovich finally starts kicking zombified ass, it becomes good enough”. Ben Kenigsberg of The Village Voice said the film is “not without its moments of elemental dread” though he complained there was too much action and padding and not enough irony.
Gregory Kirschling of Entertainment Weekly, who gave the film a ‘D−’ rating, praised Jovovich but felt that “the rest of the cast was strictly straight-to-DVD”; Cinefantastique, on the other hand, commented that Jovovich looked bored and that Guillory’s portrayal of Jill Valentine was the film’s “saving grace”.