THE DEAD TIMES

RATING:

ZOMBIE RATING:

DESCRIPTION:

After waking up in a disturbingly empty, Racoon City Hospital, Alice soon discovers that the town has been overrun by the Zombies and other biological nasties that inhabited The Hive (Umbrellla's secret underground laboratory for T-virus experimentation). She now must make the perilous journey across the city before the evil company men from Umbrella eradicate the entire place with a nuclear missile; an attempt to cover-up this disastrous mistake before the whole world learns of their nefarious hidden-business. However, when Alice hears from Dr. Ashford, who has a deal she cannot refuse, her situation changes.

MY VERDICT:

Many people have differing opinions about this sequel to film Resident Evil; some think it is better than the original, others - me included - consider it underwhelming. It continues the same gun-heavy twist on the legendary Resident Evil series of games but does try to reign the more outlandish changes back a bit. Being heavily based on the game Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, it features a more expanded, city-wide view of the landmark Racoon City and this is a welcome change to the cramped corners of The Hive - the claustrophobic setting of the first movie. Another cool thing is the greater narrative than the simple 'run and gun' action; explaining, to some extent, the origin of the T-Virus and the structure of the Umbrella Company. The biggest new addition, and the most fan-pleasing, is the introduction of Nemesis, the super-heavy mutated humanoid monster armed with a hand-held minigun and rocket launcher. He is awesome, with great practical character design and detailed, icky make up. He also says "STARZ..." in an eerie manner upon first encountering the special police unit (just like in the Resident Evil 3: Nemesis video game) but, trying to force the nature of a tense survival-horror game into the action-heavy mould the movie series favours, does not really pan out. The chaotic Zombie-killing action of the movie just seems over too quickly compared to that of the first outing; there are few consequential large-scale moments with characters fleeing from hordes of Zombies, for example. The story too, starting interesting as I've mentioned, quickly descends into generic 'kill everything' simplicity. In general, the movie just seems like fan-service; it's not "bad" or unpleasant to watch, it just focuses more on infusing popular elements from the Resident Evil game franchise, into the radically different in tone, Resident Evil movie franchise rather than simply being an entertaining film.