Resident Evil: Apocalypse - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Resident Evil: Apocalypse



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Resident Evil: Apocalypse is kind of the black sheep of the family outside of The Final Chapter. Coming right after the rather success full 2002 film, Apocalypse was seen as corny, cheesy, and so over the top ridiculous that was the Iron Man 2 of the franchise. I have to say that I’ve never shared that option of the 2nd film. While it isn’t AS fun as the highly polished first film, it feels much more comic booky, and vibes with some of the games a bit more. They tried to add in more humor with Mike Epps, and Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) was the video game character everyone loved, but for some reason the film just bombed at the theater. Again, I’m not one who really saw why it bombed, as I like the film for amping up Alice to the next level, where we finally get to see the T-virus bond with her and make her into the super heroine that she becomes. The film just oozes late 80s superhero vibes, and while the horror is near nonexistent, the high octane action and the corny one liners kept me grinning and digging deeper into the popcorn bucket.

The film picks up RIGHT after the end of the first movie, as Alice wakes up inside of an Umbrella Corporation building covered in medical IV’s. Walking straight outside she finds that Raccoon city has fallen to the hordes of zombies they thought they contained within the Hive, and the entire place is nothing but a hellhole. The city is quarantined by trigger happy soldiers who are trying to keep the T-virus monsters inside while they figure out what has happened. Unfortunately Dr. Ashford (Jared Harris), the creator of the T-virs that is ravaging the city, has his daughter stuck on the inside of the quarantined city. Enlisting the help of the newly released Alice, S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics and Rescue Service) operatives Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), soldier Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr) and criminal L.J. (Mike Epps), Ashford attempts to get his daughter to safety.

However, Ashford is not the only high up Umbrella operative watching Alice. As Alice and her new cohorts try to get the young girl out of Raccoon city, Major Cain (Thomas Kretschmann) and doctor Isaacs (Iain Glain) are keeping a VERY close eye on Alice and watching her abilities grow by the day. Sending all the horrific mutants from the first movie at them, it’s obvious that Alice is in need of a bigger enemy, forcing Cain to send in his ultimate weapon. The Nemesis project. A mutated monster who is more powerful than any other the T-virus has created so far, and quite possibly the one thing that could hone Alice into the perfect fighting machine, or the next dead experiment for Umbrella.

The 2nd film is definitely not as good as the first movie, and it’s horror roots are pretty much nonexistent. Apocalypse is definitely geared towards the action/sci-fi crowd, which kind of turned off the core audience. The tight and claustrophobic horror vibe of the first movie is gone, and in it’s place is super hero antics and tons of high powered weaponry. I can see why it wasn’t well received during it’s heyday, but after watching some of the later films post Extinction, I think that the hate for it is a bit much. Mike Epps is moderately entertaining, but Oded Fehr as Carlos and Alice’s burgeoning powers really make the movie a LOT of fun as an action movie with monsters in it. The CGI is definitely better than the first movie, and the expanded world of Raccoon city makes it feel more like the adventure game that we knew from Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 games. Jill is pretty much a spitting image of her game self (although we would never seen her in this capacity again) and Milla really started to adopt her rough and tough Alice persona (with a sliver of humanity left).




Rating:

Rated R for non-stop violence, language and some nudity




4K Video: Video:

While Resident Evil had a rather good video score back in Blu-ray, Apocalypse was one of the original Blu-ray films out of the gate and had a very lackluster score. Banding, haloing, and a generally soft and smeary appearance wasn’t helped much by the steely gray and blue looking color grading. This new 4K UHD disc is a revelation, as it handles the darkness and blue/gray color grading much better, while getting rid of the blatant artifacting. Like the first film, this is not going to be seen as the hallmark of all HDR presentations, but it’s a very natural look that does justice to the heavily stylized film. The film is even more desaturated than the previous one, and the lack of colors makes it look really bleak. However, the film grain is nice and cinematic, with good structure and no signs of swarming or getting too buzzy during dark shots. The darkness shows off tons of exquisite shadow detail, allowing us to see even up to the rafters in the old abandoned church. The softness and haloing is completely gone, and the image is pristinely clean and precisely like how I remember it back in theaters.






Audio:

The 5.1 LPCM track was superb, but this is an absolutely “apocalyptic” track in Atmos (tee hee). Guns blaze, glass explodes, the Nemesis’s footsteps shake the building as it approaches. Needless to say, this is a MASSIVELY aggressive mix that just rips the walls down and demolishes everything in it’s wake. A clean clear vocal mix, it is rife with monsters flitting from the walls to overhead, and helicopters roaring overhead. The surrounds are incredibly nuanced, as you can hear the crunch and crackle of lickers scrabbling above and around, while you are privy to the rumble and moan of the zombies littering Raccoon City. The track is not one to hold and take prisoners, but rather rip everything down and just demolish the place with never ending bass. It’s a fantastic mix that is ever richer and more robust than the original thanks to the Atmos detailing, and the sense of scope is just that more more than it was before. I used to LOVE the Apocalypse mix from Blu-ray, but I ADORE this new one.







Extras:

• Theatrical Trailer
• Teaser Trailer
• Audio Commentary with Director Alexander Witt, Producer Jeremy Bolt, and Executive Producer Robert Kulzer.
• Audio Commentary with Milla Jovovich, Oded Fehr, and Sienna Guillory.
• Audio Commentary with Writer/Producer Paul W.S. Anderson and Producer Jeremy Bolt.
• Game Over: Resident Evil Re-Animated
• Game Babes
• Symphony of Evil
• Corporate Malfeasance
• Deleted Scenes

Final Score: ​

Resident Evil: Apocalypse really tried to rise above the constrained and confined nature of the first movie, expanding the local to a much bigger area, and trying to add more characters in. Sadly the characters are a bit flat, and the horror is never that terrifying. What it does excel in is high octane action, with gunfire and explosions galore (literally). I can understand why it felt a bit disappointing after the first film, but as I keep saying, I really did enjoy this one as an over the top popcorn movie. The new 4K UHD edition is also a revelation in terms of the video and audio. The audio was a great 5.1 PCM lossless mix, but but the new 2160p image blows the mediocre Blu-ray right out of the water and doesn’t eve apologize. There’s only 2 small extras in form of a trailer and teaser, with the rest of the extras being found on the Blu-ray, but it’s a very solid package and the audio/video mix alone sells it. Fun watch.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Eric Mabius, Oded Fehr, Jared Harris, Mike Epps, Iain Glen
Directed by: Alexander Witt
Written by: Paul W.S. Anderson
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English DTS-HD MA 5.1, French (Canadian), French, Italian, Hindi, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish (Castilian), Spanish (Latin) DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish
Studio: Sony
Rated: R
Runtime: 94 minutes (Theatrical) / 98 minutes (Extended)
Blu-Ray Release Date: November 17th, 2020

Recommendation: Fun Watch