RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE

Novels and comics are difficult enough to adapt to a screenplay, but how do you adapt a video game for the movies? The very idea was once laughable, as if you could possibly craft a film from PONG or DIG DUG. However, as games have evolved to the point where they've become interactive narrative art (in some cases) while remaining somewhat ephemeral amusements (in some cases), we now have enough movies adapted from games to form to know that, while the job can be done badly (HOUSE OF THE DEAD), it can also be done well (MORTAL KOMBAT).

The makers of RESIDENT EVIL took the unusual tack of creating a prequel to the game franchise to explain how the zombie virus got loose in Raccoon City. As such, not much of the actual games got into the movie, though the entire picture is immersed in the games' world, and still managed to be an effective and fun horror/sci-fi thrill show. RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE picks up directly where we left off, with Alice (model turned action star Milla Jovovich) emerging from the evil Umbrella Corporation's underground lab complex to find the city ravaged.

Alice was created to be a stand-in for the games' players, and as such she emerges from each "level" of story with increased knowledge and abilities. Umbrella's private army closes off the entire city, planning to nuke the place within 24 hours. However, T-virus creator Dr. Ashford (Jared Harris) has a plan to rescue his young daughter, who has been stranded in the city, and uses his computer skills to contact two groups of characters trapped within the city, offering them an escaper route in exchange for their help. One group is composed of members of an elite police unit and a TV news team, while the other is made up of abandoned Umbrella security agents, and they both meet up with Alice in the course of their rescue mission. As if defending themselves from legions of the undead and mutant monsters wasn't enough, Umbrella bigwigs decide to take advantage of the situation and test how well their T-virus experiments are coming along by sending Alice's mutated former partner Nemesis (Matt Taylor) into the city to fight her.

With Alice now possessing super powers from her T-virus infection, and many of the major game characters added to the mix, APOCALYPSE is ten times more like the games than its predecessor. It has plenty of horror movie elements, but they're the same ones that inspired the games, and director Alexander Witt brings in as many game elements and kick-ass action as he can in many sequences reproducing scenes from the games with amazing accuracy. He misses something in shooting action scenes, doing too much unnecessary cutting and shooting too close, but in most ways delivers the goods. The only thing missing is the game puzzles, which are likely harder to portray than the action parts.

Though Columbia TriStar waited until they saw healthy sales on the RESIDENT EVIL DVD before issuing a special edition, they have no such qualms at this point, making this SE right away. Along with excellent transfers of the film in two aspect ratios, it contains a nice package of extras. Despite the fact that producer Jeremy Bolt sits in on separate commentraks with both writer/producer Paul W.S. Anderson (director of the first flick) and Witt, the two tracks have a lot of overlap in their stories and behind-the-scenes information, so it's best to just pick one. A third commentrak with castmates Jovovich and Oded Fehr (with inserted comments from Sienna Guillory) covers some of the same territory, but the two actors are so delightfully wacky and having a good time that the laughs are infectious.

With all this loaded on one disc, a second disc is provided to hold the rest of the extras. "Game Over" is a six-part Making-Of covering the film lightly, in a way that portrays it as either the happiest production ever or else everybody is blowing smoke. There are also a few other featurettes. One called "Game Babes" is about how sexy and tough Alice and Jill Valentine (Guillory) are as if we need to be told. One called "Symphony of Evil" is a nice surprise, combining soundtrack music with different footage plates and artwork to show how f/x were achieved. This does the job quite well in 7.5 minutes without any unnecessary chatter. "Corporate Malfeasance" talks about Umbrella, comparing it to real world mega-corporations but not Sony, which is made up of very good people. Nineteen unfinished deleted/extended scenes are provided - mostly good character bits, some of which might've given the picture more depth along with one clip from a slightly different ending. There's also three minutes of outtakes with the cast having fun making a movie, a gallery of winning entries in an online poster design contest, and eleven trailers for Columbia TriStar action/horror/sci-fi titles.

This marks the second DVD release I've seen in the past month with an artwork-printed clear plastic sleeve enclosing the keepcase (the other is the equally slick I, ROBOT). As great as they look, I wonder how long the glue will hold before the seam cracks open.

Now, on to RE: AFTERLIFE!