Post by Mr.HoRrOr on Sept 11, 2004 15:59:52 GMT -5
Story-The nightmare isn't over, General Cain ordered The Hive to be reopened, and in doing so contaminated all of Raccoon City, a city of the dead, with Alice stuck right in the middle. Now, along with other surviors, Jill Valentine, Carlos Oliviera and his Captain, Nicholai, they must fight to survive, to escape the nightmare that has plaqed Raccoon City. But now there is a new threat: Matt Addison has fully mutated into a seemingly unstoppable creature, code named Nemesis, who will stop at nothing until everything around it is dead, but it also has another agenda.
Cast-
Milla Jovovich
Sienna Guillory
Oded Fehr
Thomas Kretschmann
Sophie Vavasseur
Razaaq Adoti
Jared Harris
Mike Epps
Sandrine Holt
Matthew G. Taylor
Zack Ward
My thoughts-I was extremely amped for this movie prior to going into it. I had been waiting 3 years for this sequel, and couldn't wait to see it as I waited in the lobby of the multiplex. After seeing it, I think it was a great horror/SCI-FI/action film, but this could've hit theatres earlier than 3 years after the original. It didn't totally live up to my expectations, but definitely a great sequel.
My review-The film starts off with Alice recapping the events of the first films ending. Her and Matt escaping the Hive, only to be ambushed by Umbrella corp scientists, and then taken to seperate facilities. While this is happening, Raccoon City is all quiet, until once Alice wakes up and escapes the Umbrella facility, now the city is in turmoil, and Umbrella corp sends a few men in black to get their top scientists out of the city before the undead can get them. Dr Ashford is the key scientist in this film, and he doesn't want to leave without his daughter. Umbrellas guys have already picked up his daughter from her school, but the van is destroyed in a collision, leaving his daughter to fend for herself in a city under siege. I liked the way the film started off, it was like basically an Apocalypse. All hell had basically broken loose, people were fleeing the city in vast numbers, and death and destruction ravaged the land. While all this is going on, we finally meet Jill Valentine in a pretty cool scene where she enters the police station, and wastes a zombie. Afterwards she kills another zombie, and frees LJ (Mike Epps) from his handcuffs, and suggests that he get the hell outta dodge. Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr) and Nicholai (Ward) are returning to their headquarters when they spot a lady on the roof being attacked by zombies. Carlos attempts to rescue the woman, but shes been bitten, she knows what her fate will be in a few hours, and leaps from the rooftop. I liked this scene because it really gave the film a serious dark tone to it. A real feeling of dread. Jill meets up with Peyton Wells at the Ravens Gate bridge. Umbrella is checking people for infection, before they cross the barricade. However, Cain is given orders to seal the gates, and tells everyone to return to the city. When they refuse, Umbrella forces open fire on them. Later on Jill, Terri Morales a reporter whos out to uncover Umbrellas dark secrets , and Peyton (whos was bitten earlier on the bridge) take refuge in a church. While there they run into a civilian who was hiding there previously. This scene is where we get our first and only licker appearances. It's also the first time we get to see Alice do some damage. Just as the lickers who spend most of the scene leaping from beam to beam of the churches roof, finally corner Jill, Peyton, and Terri. Alice crashes through the church window, and disposes of the lickers with great ease. Meanwhile Cain tells Ashford to come with him, but Ashford knows his daughter is still alive. Cain leaves, him and goes to activate the Nemesis once he sees Alice is one of the last remaining civilians left. Nemesises first appearance in the film is awesome. Once hes activated he takes out an umbrella sniper with his custom rocket launcher, and annihilates a group of STARS members holed up in an abandoned gunshop. The trick to this Nemesis is, he only attacks when threatened by hostile enemies. After surviving an encounter with zombies in the graveyard, Alice, Jill and the rest are crossing a bridge when Alice (who thanks to Umbrellas experimentation on her can now sense any bioweapon or infected persons in the vicinity), senses something coming towards them, the one and only Nemesis. Alice tells everyone else to run and she battles Nemesis. This is a truly awesome scene.
Alice survives, but barely, and with a broken finger. Ashford contacts Carlos&Nicholai and Jill who picked up LJ in an earlier scene, and Alice. He offers them a ticket out of hell if they can find his daughter. Carlos who has lost one member of his team who turned zombie in an earlier scene, and Alice who wants out both take the deal. They head to the Racoon City school where Ashford has located his daughter. Terri, and Nicholai both are killed in the school by the zombie dogs and zombie children. The dogs are disposed of by Alice easily once again. After finding Ashfords daughter, who is also infected with the T-virus, but is still human because she carries the antidote in her lunchbox and has dosed herself with it, they head off to find Ashford.
However, once arriving there, they find Major Cain and Nemesis waiting. Cain kills Ashford and threatens to kill the others if Alice doesn't fight Nemesis. They battle (pretty even and very well done fight scene), and Alice doesn't act on the opportunity to finish Nemesis off, despite Cains egging her on. She starts to remember that he used to be Matt Addison. Nemesis turns on Cain after learning Cain coveted Alice as their number 1 asset all along. A gun battle ensues where umbrella forces are killed, and Nemesis is killed when a chopper he destroys crashes into him. Jill, Carlos, Alice, and Angie Ashford escape in a chopper. Alice tosses Cain off the chopper right into a sea of the undead. Cain is eaten alive. The chopper crashes after the Umbrella nuke causes the cities nuclear reactor to explode, and the impact rocks the chopper. The ending is a strange and shocking one, and I won't give it away, but lets just say there will definitely be a third installment, and probably some allegiance switching more or less.
Pros-Great action, well done fight scenes, great believability. The scenes of Raccoon City in peril are very realistic, and makes you truly believe this is their apocalypse. Also the night time scenes looked very cool. Nemesis looked awesome, and didn't disappoint me in any way. While I wished he had gotten more screentime, when he was shown on screen in action shooting, fighting, destroying or blowing something up, those moments were great. I have to commend them also on the job they did bringing him to the big screen. He was a few inches too short, but other than that, he was perfect. I also liked Carlos, Jill, and of course All 3 characters lived up to expectations, although Jill deserved a bit more screentime and action scenes. LJs comedic scenes were good, and fit in perfectly with the movie. Peyton Wells was also a good character, very honorable.
Cons-The story was kind of thin, and didn't have much meat to it. The film was a bit too short, Major Cain wasn't really a menacing villain, more of your typical cold corporate guy. We needed more Nemesis, and maybe a few more licker scenes. My biggest CON of all, the monsters. Lickers and dogs again. I was hoping for Hunters, Bandersnatches, drain demos, crows, grave diggers, anything new. I hope in part 3, we get a load of new freaks brought to the big screen. There were two stupid scenes which I felt didn't ruin the film, but didn't help it much either. One in the church when the civilian they find hiding in there makes a dash for the exit, only to be killed by the Lickers, and Jill sending Terri off on her own in the school with a small handgun to look for Ashfords daughter, which turned out to be her ultimate demise. I would think police protocol would call for Jill to keep Terri as close to her as possible since shes a civilian. Lastly, Nemesis dying really sucked. I think he should've survived and been killed off in part 3.
Overall-It was a great sequel, didn't blow away the first, but surpassed it by a few notches. I look forward to the third film seeing as how part 2 ended in a very interesting way. I'd give it 8 out of 10 stars. It's a must see for horror fans IMO.