Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) is the sequel to 2002’s Resident Evil, a cinematic version of a line of popular video games. Because of the success of the first installment, they figured they had a franchise in the making, so they greenlit Resident Evil: Apocalypse. As a practicing Catholic, I get uncomfortable with words like “evil” in the titles of movies. Almost invariably they are horror films, and equally common is the wrong side winning in the end. I would preface my next statement with apologies for spoiling the ending, but since this awful piece of cinema is so bad, I do not mind jumping to the conclusion. The antagonist, the dastardly Umbrella Corporation, wins. I guess I will now go ahead and tell you how this happens.

That victory for Umbrella begins almost immediately after Resident Evil, when the corporation sends a team into the Hive beneath Raccoon City and succeeds mainly in releasing the T-virus into the population above. Resident Evil: Apocalypse picks up there, with Umbrella commencing the evacuation of important employees while sealing off the city. Yet, Dr. Charles Ashford (Jared Harris), the scientist responsible for developing the virus, refuses to leave after his daughter Angela Ashford (Sophie Vavasseur) disappears during her evacuation. Meanwhile, suspended Special Tactics and Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) officer Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) enters a police station, demonstrates that she knows considerably more about the undead than everyone else, and urges the officers to escape. She joins Sergeant Peyton Wells (Razaaq Adoti) at the Raven’s Gate Bridge, where Umbrella is screening civilians. When an infected man dies and reanimates, biting Sergeant Wells, Major Timothy Cain (Thomas Kretschmann) orders the gate closed and sends everyone back into the doomed city. Alice (Milla Jovovich), meanwhile, awakens in the hospital where Umbrella took her at the end of the previous film. She discovers that the company’s experiments have given her enhanced strength and agility, arms herself, and heads into Raccoon City. Also patrolling the streets are Umbrella mercenaries Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr), Nicholai Ginovaef (Zack Ward), and Yuri Loginova (Stefen Hayes), who have been abandoned after assisting police against the zombies. Yuri has been bitten and eventually attacks Carlos and Nicholai after turning. Jill, Sergeant Wells, and television reporter Terri Morales (Sandrine Holt) take refuge in a church, where several Lickers (extra-quick zombies) attack them. Alice arrives on a motorcycle and dispatches the creatures, making quite an entrance even by action-movie standards. Umbrella then unleashes Nemesis, a heavily armed mutant programmed to kill surviving S.T.A.R.S. members. It massacres a group of them before continuing its search for Alice. Dr. Ashford, using Raccoon City’s surveillance system, contacts Alice and offers her a way out if she will rescue Angela, who is trapped at her school. He makes the same bargain with Carlos and Nicholai because Umbrella plans to destroy Raccoon City before dawn. Alice, Jill, Terri, and Sergeant Wells head toward the school, but Nemesis attacks along the way. Sergeant Wells, already dying from his bite, reanimates and is shot by Jill. Alice draws Nemesis away so the others can escape. Jill and Terri encounter L.J. Wade (Mike Epps), a civilian who has survived largely through luck and enthusiasm for firearms, and continue to the school. Carlos and Nicholai arrive there as well, but infected dogs kill Nicholai while Terri is attacked and killed by zombie children. Jill finds Angela, and Alice rejoins the group. Angela explains that her father originally developed the T-virus to treat the genetic disease that prevented her from walking. Kept under control with an antivirus, it regenerated her damaged cells, but Umbrella saw more profitable possibilities in something capable of bringing dead tissue back to life. The distinction is important: medical science aimed at healing is one thing, but treating human life as raw material for power and profit is quite another. Alice uses Angela’s antivirus to cure Carlos, who has been bitten. Dr. Ashford then directs the survivors to a helicopter at City Hall, their last chance to escape before Umbrella destroys the city with a nuclear weapon. They arrive only to discover that Major Cain has anticipated the plan. Umbrella troops capture them, and Major Cain murders Dr. Ashford before forcing Alice to fight Nemesis. Alice defeats the creature but refuses to kill it when she realizes that Nemesis is Matt Addison, her companion from the first film, grotesquely transformed by Umbrella’s experiments. Her mercy reaches whatever remains of Matt. When Major Cain orders Nemesis to kill Alice, he instead turns on Umbrella’s soldiers and helps her fight them. Nemesis is killed during the battle, while Jill, Carlos, L.J., Angela, and Alice seize the helicopter. They leave Major Cain behind with the approaching undead, including the newly reanimated Dr. Ashford. Major Cain uses his final bullets trying to defend himself and discovers too late that Umbrella’s philosophy of expendable human beings applies to him as readily as anyone else. The survivors take off just as a nuclear missile detonates over Raccoon City. The blast wave strikes their helicopter, and Alice throws herself in front of Angela when a metal rod tears through the cabin, taking the wound herself. The helicopter crashes outside the city, and Umbrella later recovers Alice’s apparently dead body. The corporation successfully covers up the catastrophe, blaming Raccoon City’s destruction on a nuclear power plant accident and discrediting Terri’s footage. Three weeks later, Alice awakens inside another Umbrella facility under the supervision of Dr. Alexander Isaacs (Iain Glen). She remembers everything, escapes her restraints, and fights her way toward the exit, displaying new abilities that suggest Umbrella’s experiments are still changing her. Jill, Carlos, L.J., and Angela arrive disguised as Umbrella personnel and take her away. It appears to be a successful rescue until Dr. Isaacs watches them leave and calmly orders “Program Alice” activated. Alice’s eyes change to Umbrella’s corporate symbol as she looks through a security camera, revealing that Umbrella can apparently still reach her from within.

The fact that Umbrella apparently still has control over Alice at the end of Resident Evil: Apocalypse suggests, to this Catholic, that evil has won. Perhaps this is why the film is subtitled “Apocalypse”? If so, it is a misunderstanding of eschatological events. The end of the world as we know it is a scary proposition, and it is understandable to be scared of it. At the same time, there is little reason to fear because God has already given us the ending. We know that God ultimately triumphs. Admittedly, talking about the Biblical end times in relation to a film like this is silly. There is no actual Biblical apocalypse here. There is no story, either. There is a group of people trying to survive, but where is the character development? It is the topic of character that makes people afraid of doomsday scenarios. Aside from a lack of preparation for them (and I do not mean in terms of doomsday prepping), those who believe are afraid of judgment. You see this in other films as well, with the ones who are most scared being those who feel like they have squandered their lives. Let us suppose for a moment that a zombie attack, if it were possible, was currently taking place. Up until the moment you draw your last breath, and perhaps become one of the undead, it is possible to repent of your sins and turn to God. His grace is available in any situation, especially to the truly contrite. That does not mean you should delay going to Confession or do whatever you want up until that time, but thinking about these possibilities does lessen the effect of any Hollywood version of the end of days.

Not only is the title Resident Evil: Apocalypse a bit of a joke, but so is much of the rest of it. There is a sequence in which a band of our heroes are walking through a cemetery. When the inevitable happens and corpses start to rise from their graves, the only ones surprised by the event are our characters. This is not a recipe for a successful film.