Source: hailtotheking from REA forum

A Sneak Peek at the Second Film

Paul W.S. Anderson is a busy man. After making 1995's Mortal Kombat and 1997's Event Horizon, he set his sighs on Raccoon City with the first Resident Evil movie in early 2002. Now writing and producing the sequel, Anderson is hoping to bring in more of the video games' trademark elements and recruit a crew of action specialists to bring the whole shebang together.

Leading the pack, Alexander Witt will be taking the director’s chair for Resident Evil: Apocalypse. This is his first time as a lead director, but his resume as a man-in-charge speaks well for his abilities. Credited as second unit director of photography on such blockbusters as Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, XXX, The Bourne Identity, Black Hawk Down, Twister, Lethal Weapon 3, Thelma & Louise, and The Hunt for Red October, he is frequently called the best action man in Hollywood.

Anderson and his longtime production partner at Impact Pictures, Jeremy Bolt, are working together again to bring Capcom's horror-fest back to the screen. Since Anderson is busy in Prague starting the Aliens vs. Predator project, Bolt will be the main force on set every day to make sure that things are running smoothly.

(***My observation*** So that means if you hate the movie you can't blame Anderson because all he did was write a script that got revised and he isn't even on set watching)

Milla Jovovich is reprising her role as Alice, who ended the first movie in a mysterious lab with an interesting haircut. She walked outside to find Raccoon City a seemingly abandoned disaster area, and Apocalypse starts within hors of this final scene in the first movie. While Alice is beginning to investigate what has happened to her, why the city is in disarray, and what Umbrella has been up to since the incident in the Hive; Jill Valentine, certainly a recognizable name to gamers, is working out her own issues. Although not a S.T.A.R.S. member as in the game, Jill's character in the movie is a highly trained cop trying to get out of the city with her partner. Valentine is being played by Sienna Guillory, best know for her portrayals of Helen in the TV miniseries Helen of Troy and Emma in The Time Machine. Based on pictures graciously released to the general public, Valentine's costume is a nearly exact duplication of digital Jill's clothes, which, for fans of tube tops and miniskirts, is a good thing.

(***My observation*** It's been proven that Jill is a part of S.T.A.R.S. but is currently suspended during the events of the film so I guess GI just had some old info)

These two grrl-power poster children will surely meet and try to take down Umbrella with epic force. Fighting against their efforts is militia of well-armed corporate thugs, a growing legion of undead, and Umbrella's ultimate weapon - Nemesis. Hinted at in the first movie when Alice and Matt Addison are separated, Nemesis does exist in Apocalypse, and is a hulking mass of muscle and single-syllable grunting coupled with some mean firepower. Reportedly, he will make his presence known to the girls throughout the flick.

Other characters from Resident Evil: Code Veronica and Resident Evil: Nemesis (the games that are most referenced in Apocalypse) that are making appearances include the wheelchair bound Dr. Ashford (Jared Harris), Umbrella employed military commander Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr of The Mummy flicks), and the infamous Nicholai (Zack Ward).

Little else is known about the plot specifics, but the first teaser trailer recently started running with the Screen Gems vampire/werewolf flick Underworld. The spot starts out like a skincare commercial. Espousing the benefits of ultra-moisturizing facial cream and its ability to rejuvenate the users' appearance, a woman is magically transformed into a fresh, young hottie...and then her skin turns sickly gray and starts cracking into an undead mess. Mixed in with the flashes from both of the movies, Umbrella Corp's new tagline is displayed, "Out business is life itself." Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it?

This teaser trailer, in addition to a spy-report style conspiracy theory website (which may or may not be run by the studio and lists producer Jeremy Bolt as a high-ranking Umbrella operative) are playing into what gamers will respond best to - references. These nods and inside jokes from the games won't stop with just the marketing campaign. Writer/producer Anderson, as a fan of Capcom's series, is integrating more game-inspired touches into Apocalypse's working script. Once such sequence that is directly taken from the games is, well; all we're going to say is that there's a glass hallway, more than a couple of helicopters, and major ammunition - and it's being recreated shot-for-shot for the movie.

Since the first film earned around $100 million worldwide by the time its theatrical run was finished, a sequel wasn't much of a shocker to anyone. What we're looking forward to, though, is the fact that Apocalypse seems to be more of a homage to the games than the first was. As long as we walk out of the theater in the fall of 2004 with the same feelings we have when playing the game, it certainly can't be bad. We'll be keeping you up to date on the movie's development and further details from our visit to the set in upcoming issues.

Alice on the Motocycle (Milla Jovovich)