Movie Details:
Series – Resident Evil #2
Director – Alexander Witt
Release – 2004
Rating – R
Time – 1hr 34min
My Thoughts:
Spectacle. Bloody, violent and furious spectacle.
Everything from the first movie is ramped up, except for the military style. There are Umbrella Corporation private soldiers and some of them end up hooking up with Alice and some other survivors, but they are not real soldiers. They make for good monster fodder though.
We start out exactly where the first movie ends, with some additional info to give us a larger picture of what is going on. The t-virus has escaped into Raccoon City and apparently RC is a walled city controlled by Umbrella. When Umbrella realizes they can’t control the virus, so they shut the city down, release a monster of their own to test it and it runs into Alice, who it turns out is another Umbrella experiment. So a city full of zombies, a few zombie dogs, a few lickers and then Nemesis. All the while an insane scientist is monitoring it all and thinking he’s in control. Oh, right from the first movie, Umbrella is shown to be thinking that they are in control even when it is apparent to anyone with half a brain that they aren’t. That’s half the fun, even as the situation spirals out of control, knowing that Umbrella is going to burn.
Speaking of ramping things up to an 11, well, a tactical nuke is involved at the end of the movie. It helps provide a count down to force the plot forward, but man, knowing that you have to survive and get out or you get nuked really amps up the tension. I liked it. I also enjoyed the fight between Alice and the Nemesis monster. Knowing it was the nice guy from the first movie just made it that much worse, which is the point of RE. Hold out hope only to yank it away again. That’s the formula and it works for the video games and it works for these movies.
Synopsis from Wikipedia:
Synopsis - click to open
Former security operative Alice and environmental activist Matt Addison escape an underground genetic research facility called the Hive after a zombie outbreak.[a] The pair attempted to expose illegal experiments being performed there by the pharmaceutical company Umbrella Corporation before they were taken into custody by Umbrella.
A team from Umbrella investigating the Hive is overrun by zombies, which spreads the outbreak to the nearby Raccoon City. In response, Umbrella quarantines the city and evacuates crucial personnel. Angela Ashford, daughter of researcher Dr. Charles Ashford, goes missing after her security car is involved in a collision during the evacuation. Meanwhile, disgraced S.T.A.R.S operative Jill Valentine returns to her precinct to urge her fellow officers to evacuate. Alice awakens in a deserted hospital and wanders the city for supplies while Umbrella evacuates civilians via the only bridge. At the bridge, Jill encounters her former partner, Sgt. Payton Wells, but a civilian turns into a zombie, biting Wells. Upon the outbreak reaching the bridge, Major Timothy Cain, leader of Umbrella forces, seals the exit, forcing residents back into the city.
After being abandoned by their employer, Umbrella soldiers Carlos Olivera and Nicholai Ginovaef team up with surviving police units to repel various zombie attacks. Their position is overrun; Carlos is bitten and infected. Meanwhile, Jill, Wells, and reporter Terri Morales are saved by Alice just before being overrun. Umbrella deploys the mutated supersoldier, Nemesis, who kills the remaining STARS before searching for Alice. Dr. Ashford hacks into the CCTV system to contact Alice and the survivors, offering to arrange their evacuation in exchange for rescuing his daughter. He makes the same offer to Carlos and Ginovaef, explaining Umbrella plans to destroy Raccoon City with a nuclear warhead to eliminate the zombie infection.
While heading to Angela, Alice and the group are ambushed by Nemesis. Jill kills Wells after he turns into a zombie. Alice fights Nemesis but is injured, leading her to draw him away from the others. Jill and Morales rescue stranded civilian L.J. and later meet Carlos to find Angela, though Morales and Ginovaef are killed. Angela reveals that the zombie outbreak stems from the T-virus, created by her father to treat her genetic condition, and she requires an anti-virus serum to avoid becoming a zombie. Alice uses some of the serum to cure Carlos. Dr. Ashford informs Alice of an extraction point with a waiting helicopter. The group reaches the rendezvous but are ambushed by Umbrella forces. Cain kills Dr. Ashford and compels Alice, revealed to be enhanced by the T-virus, to fight Nemesis. Alice subdues Nemesis but stops when she discovers that Nemesis is Matt, who was mutated by Umbrella's experiments.
Nemesis turns on Cain and attacks the Umbrella troops but is killed while protecting Alice. The remaining survivors seize the helicopter and eject Cain from it, and he is killed by zombies. As the survivors escape, a nuclear warhead detonates over the city, and the resulting blast wave causes the helicopter to crash. Alice sacrifices herself to save Angela and is impaled on a metal pole. T.V. footage attributes the blast to a meltdown of the city's nuclear power plant, obscuring Umbrella's involvement.
Alice wakes up in an Umbrella research facility and escapes with help from Carlos, Jill, L.J., and Angela. She also displays psionic abilities after telekinetically killing a security guard. As they leave, Dr. Alexander Isaacs, a top-ranking Umbrella employee, reveals that Alice's escape is part of Umbrella's plan.
