Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004 UK/Canada)

First sequel to Resident Evil (2002). The first 7-minute sequence shows us what was happening in Raccoon City just after the events inside The Hive in the first film and while Alice (Milla Jovovich) slept for  a couple of days in a Hive surgery room run by the infamous Umbrella Corp; basically, things went to hell rapidly with infected people i.e. zombies spreading and most of the populace was evacuated. There's one female cop (Sienna Guillory) who, for some reason, knows better than anyone else about killing zombies and never panics (well, she's an established character in the video game on which this is based, created years earlier - a video game character which can kill zombies efficiently). Alice soon meets her and a couple of others inside a huge church, where they need to kill a trio of "Lickers," grotesque bio-weapons who scurry on walls and ceilings.

The rest of this is the old story - a group of fighters need to make their way out of a city, up against zombies, but it throws in one diversion - the group is contacted by an Umbrella scientist (Jared Harris), who needs them to find his daughter in exchange for a lift out. The city is scheduled to be nuked to wipe out the zombie threat. This has a stock villain, an Umbrella officer (Thomas Kretschmann), evil for evil's sake, and then there's Nemesis, a lumbering brute which is the latest Umbrella bio-weapon. There's way too much gunplay for my tastes - the strength of video games for teens - becoming very repetitive, marked only by a couple of minor revelations towards the final act. This is geared more towards those familiar with these video games, though Milla is usually watchable and the actress (Sophie Vavasseur) who plays the young daughter gives the best performance. The climax is somewhat perplexing. BoG's Score: 6 out of 10 Next was Resident Evil:Extinction (2007)