The Movies:
Although they’ve seen fine releases on DVD before, Sony has opted to re-release the first two films in the Resident Evil series just in time for the third film’s theatrical debut. The two films are contained on the first disc, and all of the supplements (save for one but more on that later) are on the second disc.
Resident Evil:
In a small town named Raccoon City, the Umbrella Corporation holds its headquarters. The largest supplier of surgical and defense technologies in the world, Umbrella holds immense power and has access to all sorts of things that they probably shouldn’t be messing with. Their less conventional projects have been squirreled away in a secret facility way underground, codenamed ‘The Hive.’ When a biological experiment known only as the ‘T Virus’ is accidentally unleashed in the facility, a few hours later things are starting to look rather grim for the scientists and researchers trapped in ‘The Hive.’
The Umbrella Corporation sends in a crack team of military commandos to go into ‘The Hive’ and rescue any survivors they can find, but the only one left is Alice (Milla Jovavich), who’s been trying to sort out her amnesia problem while all of this has been going down. Everyone and everything else that was in ‘The Hive’ when the ‘T Virus’ hit is now a flesh eating zombie… and the virus is contagious.
Director Paul W. S. Anderson (Event Horizon and Aliens Vs. Predator took a whole lot of flack from the horror community when this movie hit theaters. A lot of people were disappointed not only because the movie isn’t a literal adaptation of the source material (the popular series of video games of the same name), but also because it seemed that the film was tailor made for George Romero to helm. Anderson didn’t deliver a Romero movie, and that seems to be what a lot of us wanted out of the film. It makes sense too, when you think about it. After all, what was the most obvious influence on the Resident Evil games? The answer is obviously ‘Romero’s dead trilogy.’ Anderson’s film is more of an action-horror hybrid than a character driven Romero-esque piece.
The movie is full of stereotypes (Michelle Rodriguez is sorely underused and not given much to work with, despite the fact that she is quite a competent actress), and is definitely a gross example of style over substance but it still works - at least on an entertainment level. Whereas Romero’s zombie films all had some sort of social commentary (be it the anti racism tones of Night Of The Living Dead or the commentary on crass American consumerism in Dawn Of The Dead) and there’s none of that here at all. This is an action-horror video game adaptation that doesn’t aspire to be anything more than a gory shoot’em up with hot chicks in the lead and a fast paced techno metal soundtrack. But hey, it moves along at a nice pace, provides a few good jump scares, and looks just as slick as slick can be.
So sure, the movie could have been a lot more than it was. There could have been a lot more character development and the competent cast could have been given better dialogue and a meatier story to work with, but that didn’t happen. Regardless, Resident Evil does entertain, and in the end that’s all we realistically should expect from it. On that level and that level alone, the film works just fine.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Alice’s voice over introduction fills us in on the events that took place in the first film, and then from there a few flashback scenes show us how chaos eventually erupted throughout Raccoon City. With the Umbrella Corporation’s control over the city as tight as a vice grip, all of the exit points leading out are blocked off by their soldiers, inspecting each individual to make sure that they’re not carrying anything contagious out of the city. Eventually, however, the zombies begin to overtake the city and the Umbrella Corporation decides to wall off the bridge and to more or less sacrifice the survivors left inside.
With the stage set, we meet the central characters - a street hustler named LJ (Mike Epps), a reporter named Terri (Sandrine Holt), and a few STARS team members like Nicholai (Zach Ward), Carlos (Oded Feher), and Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory). They meet up by chance and decide to team up and try to find a way to survive amongst the hordes of zombies roaming the streets around them. While they’re finding themselves in increasingly dire straits, Alice (Milla Jovavich) is trying to figure out exactly what happened to her. She figures out that the Umbrella Corporation used her to perform experiments on and that she’s been given a rogue strain of the virus that, rather than turn her into a zombie, has enhanced her abilities and increased her strength and stamina. Of course, Alice meets up with the group of survivors and they all team up for the best chances of survival. What they don’t know is that the Umbrella Corporation has bio-engineered a creature called Nemesis who exists only to kill off all the surviving members of the STARS team and who is currently on the loose and looking for his prey. Their only chance is to find the young daughter (Sophie Vavasseur) of Dr. Charles Ashford (Jared Harris) who just may hold the missing piece of the puzzle that Alice and her team will need to lay this plague to rest. That is, if the Umbrella Corporation doesn’t bomb the bejeezus out of Raccoon City first.
With Anderson relegated to writing and producing the film, first time director Alexander Witt is given a change to give audiences his spin on the Resident Evil universe. That said, his take doesn’t differ much from Anderson’s and the second film in the series is, like its predecessor, a very slick looking action-horror movie with fantastic visuals and a mediocre plot. Milla looks stunning here, even more so than in the first picture, and she carries things nicely proving competent in both the action scenes and in the more dramatic moments. She’s been surrounded with a reasonably good supporting cast and the film benefits from decent acting courtesy of Feher and Ward - but the film feels shallow and at times almost pieced together, more a series of set pieces than a cohesive whole. We’re definitely entertained by violence, gore, sex appeal and zombies but nothing resonates for very long and the end result is a mindless, albeit fun, time killer.
The soundtrack, again comprised of cookie cutter new-metal tracks, adds nothing to the picture and doesn’t help build suspense at all and the cut-cut-cut editing style loses its novelty quickly. That said, there’s enough here to amuse us. Milla runs down a building and attacks her enemies, zombies eat and explode, and Nemesis looks pretty neat. A few well placed jump scares provide some cheap thrills and the ending is effective even if its obviously setting us up for the third film…
The DVD
Video:
Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Apocalypse get very solid transfers that are enhanced for anamorphic sets and retains the original aspect ratio of the films at 1.85.1 and 2.40.1 respectively. The image for both films is very crisp clean and only occasionally is there any minor specks of print damage. Skin tones look dead on, color definition is top notch, and this is overall a very nice presentation of the film. There is some minor edge enhancement and shimmering in a couple of scenes that is slightly noticeable but it doesn’t happen too often, thankfully. Some of the darker scenes show just a tiny bit of mpeg compression but aside from that there’s very little to complain about here, the movies look very good.
Sound:
Equally impressive are the sound mixes for the films. Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mixes are supplied in English and French. Optional subtitles are provided in English and French for the first film and in English only for the second with English closed captioning provided for both features. Both films benefit from very active and aggressive sound mixes that really do add quite a bit of atmosphere to the movies, especially during the action and zombie attack sequences. Surrounds are used nicely to fill in the soundscape and the subwoofer gives a few nice solid kicks to the proceedings, enhancing the nice jump scares during the films. Dialogue is never a problem and is always clearly comprehensible, and background music and sound effects are well balanced and mix nicely, never overshadowing what’s being said at any given point in time.
Extras:
Most of the extras from the prior releases of these two films on DVD have not been carried over and, surprisingly enough, much of the new extra content in this set is related not to the films it contains but to the (at the time of this writing) upcoming release of Resident Evil: Extinction starting with Exclusive Sneak Scene (2:06) from the film, which is the only extra on the first disc. Presented in non-anamorphic widescreen, this is a surprisingly gory clip in which Alice and a few other soldiers take on a horde of zombies out in the desert. Heads are blown open, throats are slit and there’s arterial spray galore, even if much of the effects work is CGI.
Disc two starts off with The Evolution Of Resident Evil: Bridge To Extinction (5:00) which is really little more than a recap of the events in the first two films by way of some nifty clips and Milla’s voice over work. What makes it worth watching are some clips from Extinction. While this is likely nothing we won’t see in the movie once it premieres, it’s an interesting look at where they’re going with the storyline. Twenty percent of the running time is made up by credits and this is really nothing more than an ad, but at least it’s a cool ad.
There are a few goodies in the Featurettes section starting with Diary Of An Apocalypse (27:47) which is a documentary that explores the making of the second film in the series by way of some interviews and a plethora of behind the scenes footage. Undead Bootcamp (11:47) is an interesting peek at how extras and principal actors are turned into zombies. We see them learn to shuffle and act like zombies and then we see some make up effects applied to add the finishing touches. The Stuntman Set Tour (5:49) shows how two scenes were handled - the street fight sequence and the helicopter jump. We see some raw test footage, some practice footage, and then we’re shown the final version as it appears in the movie for comparison’s sake. The Zombie Dogs POV test (1:35) is some raw footage from camera tests done to check out the speed and angle of the zombie dogs that were designed for use in the movie piggybacked on some finished footage from the film.
Rounding out the extra features are a Memory Retention Training Quiz, a series of still galleries (Art Department, Production Photos, Publicity, Set Design and Storyboards), trailers for a few other Sony DVD releases and for the upcoming Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles game, animated menus and chapter stops.
Final Thoughts:
If you own previous releases of the two movies in this set, the extras aren’t enough to warrant a double-dip. That said, if you don’t have them and loud, mindless action-horror if your thing, you can consider this Resident Evil/Resident Evil: Apocalypse two disc collection recommended. The movies aren’t deep but they are a lot of fun and this release makes for an affordable and convenient way to catch up on the films before Extinction is unleashed.
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ends up having an affair with a French scuba instructor. His life goes into a tailspin, but a chance meeting with a childhood friend, Polly (Aniston, "Friends"), gives him a new lease on love. The trouble is, Polly is the exact opposite of Reuben, always taking risks and not wanting to become pat and predictable in any way, which makes Reuben very uneasy, as he tries to go along with her plans, even if they involve putting himself in situations he’d rather not be in.
