Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)

Resident Evil: Apocalypse is the worst movie made since Resident Evil.

Director’s Wife Kate Beckinsale is back as Selene, a spindly white woman who wears black leather and kicks a bunch of people. She’s a vampire, which is why she’s only ever seen at night shooting people with machineguns as vampires are wont to do. The Fanged Ones have a blood feud (ha) with the lycans aka werewolves, which is why Kate kills them with perfectly normal non-silver bullets and knives. In the first movie Kate killed one of the three vampire elders or gods or whatever, so now, she tells us, the vampires will come after her, too. They never do, though. It’s that kind of movie.

Kate is joined by living wax dummy Trunk Slamchest, a vampire-werewolf hybrid who was the Macguffin of the previous film. Yes, he’s a vampire-werewolf hybrid. A vamwolf, if you will. Kate exposits that Lump Beefbroth is unique, that there has never been a hybrid before, and that his power might be unlimited. (Doesn’t the first bit imply the second bit?) Because he was vamped in the last movie, Gristle McThornbody has to drink blood to survive. He’s not down with the whole blood-drinking thing, but Kate insists, “Normal food might kill you.” She leaves to do some vampire stuff and Slab Awesomefist immediately goes to a pub and orders a plate of potatoes that he barfs up after maybe 2 bites. Not the brightest bulb in the pack, our Big McLargeHuge, but I for one applaud the actor for his convincing performance as a vamwolf that eats potatoes and pukes.

Meanwhile, the bad guy from the last film brings a few goons to murder Marcus, the First and therefore Most Powerful vampire of them all. No, they don’t bring stakes or knives but instead the traditional vampire hunters’ weapon of choice: machineguns. Haven’t you read Dracula? The Count went down under a hail of automatic weapons fire. I’m sure I’m remembering that right.

“Ah ha!” I hear you shout at your phone as you prepare to smugly correct the smartass author of a blog no one reads, “the first movie had UV bullets, so they can machinegun vampires to death!” Yeah but these guys forgot to bring those, I guess, since they shoot Marcus over and over and he just kills them all. Yep, the villain of the last movie, who somehow made it to this one, is unceremoniously dispatched 15 minutes in. I haven’t seen an anticlimax like that since the last guy who went to bed with Tomi Lahren. Marcus has the ability to see clips from the previous movie people’s memories by drinking their blood, because as we all learned in Science! class, that’s where memories are stored. And no, obviously Marcus doesn’t see those events from the victim’s perspective, that would require shooting new scenes and do you know how much work it is to shoot a scene? You have to like point the camera at actors and shit, it’s hard. Marcus decides he’s going to free his brother William, the First and therefore Most Powerful of the werewolves, imprisoned lo these 800 years because Billy couldn’t control his savagery and was just eating everybody. Why does Marcus want to do this? So he and Bill can be godbros and Take Over The World. Why didn’t Marcus do this oh, say, about 8 centuries ago? Because the movie’s happening now, why did you even ask.

Marcus somehow knows Bulk Vanderhuge is at the pub, so he goes there to obtain the key to Billy’s prison. Kate somehow knows both that this is happening and where, even though she left before Rip Stigface decided to go to the pub. People just kind of know things when the movie needs them to. All three characters end up getting shot, but since they’re all vampires or hybrids or some damn thing they just shrug it off. Kate helps Smoke Manmuscle hulk up by letting him drink some of her blood (that’s…not how vampirism works), and he uses his awesome power to shoot Marcus with his machine pistol, disabling him while he and Kate flee in a truck. Guns just sort of work on vampires and werewolves, or don’t, as the movie needs them to. And man, that unlimited power sure is making itself known, eh, what with how he shot Marcus with a gun he had. No mere mortal could shoot a guy. But alas! Marcus has a winged demon form, and he flies onto the truck and there’s more fighting and more injuries that don’t actually cause any harm. “Dead or alive, you will tell me what I want to know!” Marcus screams at Kate. Genius, it might help if you told her what it is that you want to know.

Finally Marcus gets to the point in the script where it says the heroes get away, so he stops chasing them. Slate Slabrock asks Kate if Marcus is a hybrid, and she replies yes. Okay so earlier Slate was unique and there had never been a hybrid before, but now the First Vampire is a hybrid(?). Right so there was never a hybrid vampire before Slate, and the first ever vampire to exist…was a hybrid. Makes sense if you don’t think about it. Kate is slightly burned on the hand and face by sunlight, so they park inside an abandoned building and Brick Hardmeat light-proofs it for her (including one shot where you can clearly see the sunlight shining on her head and shoulder). He runs to get some first aid to treat Kate’s wounds. Treat. Kate’s. Wounds. With a first aid kit. She’s a vampire, you colossal dope! She will heal any wound. You spent the entire last movie learning this shit. Oh and you are also a vampire and at this very moment you have no injuries even though you just got shot in the chest a dozen times and run over by a truck. Christ.

Then they have PG-13 sex because even though the movie’s rated R, Kate’s not exposing her goods for this crap no matter what her hubby says. Now this is absolutely moronic for a number of reasons. First, we all know that thematically vampirism stands in for repression of sexual desire, which totally goes out the window when you have vampires having actual se—I kid, this is a Len Wiseman movie, subtlety and metaphor are right out. Okay then, second, vampires are dead and have no heartbeat or blood flow, so Crud Bonemeal won’t be performing, if you know what I mean and I think you do. And even if you posit that he’s a vamwolf so he can still rock the red rocket, Kate’s a regular vampire so she won’t have the necessary blood flow to even have sexual desire. Unless she does have a beating heart. And blood carrying hormones to her living brain. Which is affected by those hormones just as a normal human brain would be. In which case she wouldn’t be a vampire at all but just a super-powered person…hey!

Kate decides to visit vampire lore expert Tanis Half-Elven to figure out why Marcus has gone all killy on his own vampire clan. Tanis was exiled 300 years ago, and no one has seen him or heard from him since. Buck Plankchest asks how they’re going to find him given all that, and Kate replies, “I’m the one who exiled him.” Okay…and? How is that an answer to his question? Does the screenwriter—yes, this movie was actually written, by an actual human being—know what exile is? Just because you sent him away, even to a specific place, doesn’t mean he’s still there 300 years later. So they go to his house, and yep he’s still there having had contact with no one. Is it me or is this less exile and more imprisonment? The house is guarded by lycans, two of whom Kate easily dispatches with ordinary knives. Werewolves are immune to non-silver metals, or aren’t, as the movie needs them to. Then she sees two scantily clad women in a hallway and immediately murders them. Yes, they were vampires and were approaching her with the intention of defending Tanis, but how did Kate know that? She attacks them before they do anything but walk slowly toward her! It turns out Tanis Half-Elven is the one who came up with the UV bullets that helped the lycans finally start doing real damage in the vampire/lycan war. Boy, vampire-killing bullets sure will come in handy against Marcus.

(They don’t take any of the UV bullets.)

(Nor is Tanis armed with them when Marcus shows up in the very next scene and kills him.)

(Stupid movie.)

Tanis says there’s a second key and that Kate is the only one still alive who knows where Bill’s prison is, so she and Splint Chesthair absolutely must escape Marcus because he’s stronger than them and can get the first key from Punch Sideiron and the prison’s location from Kate. Tanis points them to Dad Immortal, the father of Marcus and Billy who is neither a werewolf nor a vampire but is immortal because he just is okay and don’t ask why. That's right, Dad sired both the world's first vampire and the world's first werewolf. I guess they had different mothers. Dad has watched the entire centuries-long war between the vampires and lycans and the 800-year imprisonment of Bill and has done fuck-all about it because he loves his sons and doesn’t want to kill them. Well Daddy-O, you’re clearly okay with the eternal imprisonment of one son (which seems a lot more cruel than death, frankly), so why didn’t you just lock up Marcus, too? Then stopping the war wouldn't mean killing either son. Stupid movie. It turns out Dad has the second key. Pretty convenient for Marcus that the 3 people who have the 3 things he needs to carry out his evil plan have all gathered in one place. Marc shows up, kills Dirk Hardpec, and takes his key, and instead of running away Kate attacks him and gets beat down like the 2008 Lions, allowing him to learn Bill’s location from her blood. So well done Kate, way to keep your eye on the prize. Marcus then mortally wounds Dad, takes the second key, and demon-flies off to free his wolf-bro. Dad tells Kate to drink his blood and gain his power.

What power? The power…to be killed by Marcus? Dad never displayed any power apart from not dying of old age, yet somehow Kate taking his power will make her able to beat Marcus, confirming that Dad could’ve killed Marcus but just didn’t want to. He’s okay with giving Kate the power to do it, though. I guess giving someone else the ability kill his son is different from killing him directly, but yeesh, the old geezer could’ve prevented a lot of suffering and death over the last 8 centuries if he’d had the huevos to just whack his monster-kids.

Marcus goes to the prison and frees Bill, who attacks him until Marcus says, “It’s me, Marcus!” so he stops. It turns out Bill can’t control his savagery except when he can. Kate arrives in a helicopter with Blast Thickneck’s corpse (gee, I can’t possibly see where this is going) and some Expendable Meat soldiers who worked for Dad and now apparently work for Kate because she’s their boss now she decided. One of these guys is played by Spirit of the West, the CAG in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries. That this random Canadian folk singer playing a thankless “sir-yes-sir” role turns in by far the film’s best performance physically pains me. Not because the guy’s not a decent actor (he is), but because Bill fucking Nighy is in this movie. I know Nighy is slumming it in this trash, but good god his performance is abominable. Nicolas Cage would tell Nighy that he’s a bit over the top. So thank you Spirit of the West for lending a little class and dignity to a movie that doesn’t deserve it. You left us too soon.

Let’s wrap this up. Wolfman Jack kills all the soldiers, Marcus crashes the helicopter into the prison complex (yet its rotor continues to turn as if it’s still running, stupid movie), and it looks like Kate, despite her Dad-blood upgrade, faces certain defeat, in part because the script says her non-silver bullets don’t hurt the Big Bad Wolf. Suddenly, just when we most expect it, Blast Hardcheese springs back to life and kills Werewolf of London in about 8 seconds flat. Some wolf god he turned out to be. I can see why the whole movie was about how Marcus couldn’t be allowed to let him out. I mean, he was a threat to like half a dozen people for upwards of a few minutes. The movie even gives us a replay of Kate saying Smash Lampjaw is unique and there’s never been a hybrid before. Except of course for Marcus who is currently in the same room, but who’s counting? Marcy-Marc impales Kate through the heart with blade tentacles that spring from his back, but even though he killed Dad this exact same way earlier, Kate doesn’t die and shoves Marcus into the rotors that are inexplicably still spinning. So Dad-blood gave Kate the power to survive a wound that Dad himself couldn’t survive? Whatever, Kate gets some voiceover about hope for the future and we’re out.

Lots of IMdb reviews for Resident Evil: Apocalypse say that if you enjoyed the first movie, you’ll enjoy this sequel. And man, I can’t think of a more damning statement than that.