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Dumb. More than dumb. Big, dumb and clearly lacking in any thought about plot and motivation, “Resident Evil: Apocalypse” is an example of the inane and mindless filmmaking that has taken over theaters in the last ten years or so. It’s too bad because the first film, despite the fact that it was derivative, at least showed some visual imagination or flair. This plays like a big budgeted Sci-Fi original movie. The make up looks like it’s out of a bad Troma movie. I realize that Writer/producer Paul W. S. Anderson (“Resident Evil”, “Mortal Combat”) had to work with the videogame but, clearly, this was a half hearted effort. Ironically the satirical horror film “Shaun of the Dead” is 100 times more effective with less budget, scale but more wit and imagination than this film. ***

Raccoon City has been quartined. It seems that the virus that escaped the lab in the first film has been spread to the general population (as was seen at the conclusion of “Resident Evil”). Panic hits the streets as the police must deal with, well, undead criminals trying to take a bite out of crime themselves quite literally. Most of the residents must pass through a biohazard detection field before they’ll be allowed to leave. Most, however, are trapped in a city marked for destruction by the Umbrella Corporation to prevent the wildfire spread of the virus. Unfortunately, Dr. Ashford (Jared Harris) inventor of the T-virus has been separated from his daughter. While he’s escaped, she’s still trapped within the confines of the city at the mercy of her undead schoolmates. Alice (Milla Jovovich), police officer Jill (Sienna Guillory), STARS special ops agent Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr from “The Mummy” and “The Mummy Returns”) must find Ashford’s daughter to find a way out of Raccoon City. Along the way they must do battle with Nemesis (Matthew Taylor) the mutated form of Alice’s friend Matt Addison. The Umbrella Corporation has trained Nemesis to be an indestructible killing machine and only Alice can stand up against him. ---

All of the extras are stuffed on the second disc. Like the recent re-release of “Resident Evil”, this film offers a multi-part documentary covering everything from pre-production to post-production effects being added. It’s an excellent documentary that explores just about every aspect of film production. There’s also a gallery devoted to the on-line finalists for the poster design of the film. Quite a bit of imagination went into the designs for most of these posters and suggests that there’s a career in advertising awaiting some of these folks. ***

“Corporate Malfeasance” looks at the corporate world and companies that have operated with their own twisted agenda much like the evil Umbrella Corporation does in this film. It’s not something Michael Moore might put together and it’s pretty shallow but engaging in spots. “Game Babes” focuses on the emergence of woman who kick butt in the movies and in videogames. It all can be traced back to the character of Ripley in the film “Alien” so I suppose in a perverse way we can blame this mess of a film on Ridley Scott. “Symphony of Evil” focuses on the special effects used to bring these nasty beasts and the undead to life in the movie. ---