Resident Evil: Apocalypse is the sequel to Paul W.S. Anderson's adaptation of the horror video game Resident Evil. Alice, the heroine of the first film, is joined by new characters to blast their way out of the zombie infested streets of a now quarantined Raccoon City. They also have to track down a young girl, the daughter of an employee of the evil Umbrella Corporation who might be able to help them escape. Unbeknownst to everyone, the latest result of the T-virus experiment, the unstoppable Nemesis, has been unleashed into the city and is hot on their trail. Scripted by Anderson and directed by first-timer Alexander Witt, the movie picks up pretty much where the original left off.

This movie falls into a special horror subgenre that I once monikered "the MTV movie," in which elements that would be considered downright awful in an more artistically aspiring context conspire here to possibly make the viewing experience more enjoyable, provided that you’re in the right mood. Actors, director and crew must all be up for whatever moronic and comatose idiocies writers/producers like Paul W.S. Anderson, et al cook up. Such eagerness could make movies like this work, since those involved make up in commitment what they lack in actual skill. This is not the kind of movie that would in any way be intellectually fulfilling, and most people would probably never admit in good company to liking it, but still, there can be something undeniably enjoyable about them.

This sequel is more true to the game than the tolerable, even mildly acceptable first entry. And while I’m not sure if strict trueness to source material from another medium is a good thing per se, chances are considerable that a movie is going to be disastrous when it’s intended as a motion picture remake of a computer game. As a result, plot plays distinctly second fiddle to the shooting as Witt zaps and whooshes from one set piece to the next. Fans of the game will no doubt cheer at the top of their lungs at all the zombies, hellish creatures and furless Dobermans as they get splattered in a nonstop array of weaponry and death-defying feats, orchestrated by scantily-clad women. But when even the zombies look as though they can't be bothered, you know you're in trouble.

What puts this sequel so far below the original is, most of all, its awkward direction. Anderson can hardly be considered as one of the best action movie directors out there (the mess he made of Alien vs. Predator took care of that) but at least in Event Horizon and Resident Evil he’s proven to have a good sense of framing and to be able to inject movies with a palpable sense of dread. Both of these traits are completely missing in Resident Evil: Apocalypse, though. The cinematography has a perfunctory feel to it, and director Alexander Witt's occasional attempts to add style -- usually by means of awful slow motion sequences and clumsy action choreography -- are so horrid that they will provoke unintentional laughter. Functional gore, which might have contributed to some suspense, has been carefully trimmed out of the zombie action to secure a mild and marketable rating and even the movie’s supposed-to-be trump card, the fighting sequences, leave a lot to be desired. Sparsely lit in fashionable dark deep-blue, the quick cuts left me completely lost in disorientation as I tried to discern what was going on. Witt may be an experienced assistant director, but his first attempt at a full-feature suggests that he doesn't have what it takes to carry an entire movie of this kind.

As for the acting, Milla Jovovich's performance as the lead character Alice is also much weaker than in the first movie. The script admittedly doesn’t provide any moment for the viewer to empathize with her character -- Alice is set up as your typical action hero with superpowers and so on, but her portrayal is unnaturally stilted even within the given scope. However, co-lead Sienna Guillory turns in a relatively acceptable performance, making her character Jill Valentine (a carry-over from the games) come alive. She also sports the most embarrassing outfit in the movie though, providing evidence that Anderson, in the original, actually took the right decision not to directly port the game to the movie. In her miniskirt, leather boots and strapless top, she looks about as prepared for battle as a man in a tutu. Equally awkward is the design for the part-Robocop, part-Cenobite Nemesis. Elsewhere, the cast do what they can with the very thin roles that were provided for them, but all of them are playing horrendous clichés, none of which is given any gravity. Even Thomas Kretschmann, who seems to be playing every evil German soldier role nowadays, shows nothing of the vigor he gave us in The Stendhal Syndrome.

In short, everything in this movie feels like an afterthought, a ramshackle vehicle that carries an overload of uninspired action sequences from predefined production values. The script is horrible, the absence of narrative logic unfathomable and the total disregard for its audience, unforgivable. The film runs out of steam long before the second reel kicks in, then adds insult to injury by setting things up for a third installment. With zombie movies going through something of a revival over the past couple of years, exemplified in enjoyable movies like 28 Days Later and Shaun Of The Dead, it’s a shame that something better could not be made of this Resident Evil sequel.