Film: 
DVD:
Written by Paul W.S. Anderson
Directed by Alexander Witt
Starring Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr, Thomas Kretschmann, Zack Ward, and Sophie Vavassuer
Features:
- Running audio commentary with director Witt, producer Jeremy Bolt and executive producer Robert Kulzer
- Running audio commentary with cast members Jovovich, Fehr, and Guillory
- Running audio commentary with writer Anderson and producer Bolt
- Deleted scenes
- Cast outtakes
- Game Over: Resident Evil Reanimated featurette
- Corporate Malfeasance featurette
- Game Babes featurette
- Symphony of Evil featurette
- Poster Gallery
Released by: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment
Rating: R
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Yes.
My Advice: Rent it.
The Umbrella Corporation just won’t leave Alice (Jovovich) alone. They’ve been experimenting on her again. This time, they’ve turned her into a kick-ass super-soldier. Not only that, but they didn’t learn their lesson with the first incident at The Hive. They’ve opened it back up and started experimenting again. This time, they’ve contaminated the whole of Racoon City. They are trapped in the city, trying to get out, but the whole city is full of the undead. The difference this time is that Alice has got a little bit of help: Jill Valentine (Guillory), Carlos Oliviera (Fehr) and his Captain, Nicholai Ginovaeff (Ward). There’s only one big problem and it’s called Nemesis (voiced by Matthew Taylor). It’s a badass supersoldier that is ugly as homemade sin.
Here is a case where the sequel is actually better than the original. Not only are the special effects better, but the story is more compelling and the characters are better written. Jovovich’s character is more of a badass and it just works better. Not only that, but they killed off the Rodriguez character from the first film so they had a chance to cast a better actress as a nearly equal badass. They found her in Guillory. Not only is she easy to look at, she’s great as an action star. Everyone else figured out early on that they were there just to support these two and they stayed out of the way. And another major thing that makes this movie work better is the use of the Nemesis character. Thankfully, there is a hard-core “bad guy” to focus on throughout the movie, rather than just trying to defeat a computer that is personified by a cute little girl. It just allows for more fast-paced hijinks.
Three featurettes start us off in the world of the special features, which, I might add span two discs in this set. The best featurette is the first one. It’s the most informative and enlightening and it’s not the one with the cast. It’s the one with the director and two producers. Sadly, the cast commentary is spent with these three (okay, to be fair it was mostly Fehr and Jovovich) making fun of the movie they were watching (and starring in). You read correctly: every now and then they spout out with a piece of trivia worth hearing, but for the most part, they spend their time making fun of the zombies and providing an alternate voice track for the movie while ridiculing it. I’m surprised they let this out of the studio. It underminds the impact of the film. The most boring is the featurette with the writer and producer. I guess this comes as no real surprise to me considering that the first movie was also directed by Anderson. He just doesn’t really understand the concept of holding an audience’s attention. And that’s all for the first disc.
The second disc starts us off with a series of featurettes about the making of this flick. One theme quickly bubbles to the surface with these featurettes: this is all about the movie going into the world of the computer game. The problem is that that’s about all you get; it just goes on too long after you’ve gotten the gist. And there’s quite a bit of ego stroking going on. The featurette that most males are going to gravitate to is the one that talks about Game Babes. It talks about the shift of the action hero of the video game to female characters.
Then you move into some of the most boring featurettes ever created. First you have a (yawn) look at the orchestration for the movie. It’s not an interview with the composer, which might actually be worth talking about–instead, it’s a montage of shots from the movie played against the main symphonic theme. Then you have a thinly veiled piece of propaganda about the evil corporation. It actually makes the attempt to state that all corporations are the root of all evil and that any corporation like Microsoft or Halliburton are actually capable of producing this type of evil on our society. Kind of a weird venue for a political statement, even one that seems to be tied in with the movie a little. I just thought it was in poor taste. And especially amusing since, you know, this DVD was released by a corporation.
The deleted scenes, just like they are on nearly every other DVD, are nearly a waste of time. It becomes obvious very quickly that they were cut because they added nothing to the overall effect of the film. And it pains me very much to say that the gag reel, which normally is one of my favorite features on a disc is nothing more than a snoozefest. It’s poorly timed and the the bits they do show are not funny at all. The final feature on the disc are stills of the winning poster designs from an online contest. They are not in a slideshow format, you actually have to click through to see all of them, so this one is pretty much a waste of time, too.
If you are into the movie, you should definitely check this one out for the commentaries. However, I wouldn’t recommend buying it. The other material doesn’t make it worthwhile.
Buy Stuff
- Buy it from Amazon.
- Buy the soundtrack from Amazon.
- Click here to buy Resident Evil stuff from Amazon.
