Resident Evil: Apocalypse

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Resident Evil: Apocalypse's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Resident Evil: Apocalypse completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 29 October 2004.

Overall comments and recommendations

Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a science fiction / horror movie, which is in YMA's view is rated too low at ‘M—medium level violence, medium level coarse language'. The movie is based upon the third in a video game series of the same name. It targets adolescent males and in particular those who enjoy violent shoot-em-up video games. Most of the movie revolves around two sensuous scantly clad women shooting or blowing up flesh-eating zombies.

Adults are unlikely to enjoy this movie, which has a nonsensical storyline, major flaws and predictable suspense.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie Resident Evil: Apocalypse contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

In the first Resident Evil film (rated MA 15+), a virus capable of genetically altering people into flesh-eating zombies was accidentally released in a top-secret underground facility referred to as the Hive. At the end of the film, the two heroes, Alice and Matt, survived the zombies, only to be captured for experimentation by Umbrella Corporation scientists.

In Resident Evil: Apocalypse Alice has awoken from a drug induced sleep to find her body genetically altered, with superhuman strength and combat abilities. Matt, transformed into Nemesis, a genetically engineered super bio-weapon, is now one of her many enemies. In the meantime, the residents of Raccoon City have been infected with the T-virus, and all but a few have become flesh-eating zombies. A small band of survivors from various walks of life, including Jill, a police officer, must escape the zombies and the city before a nuclear device is detonated, sterilising the city.

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse is packed with graphic violence. In one of the opening scenes, Jill walks into a police station and shoots a number of detainees in the head. She states, ‘shoot them in the head', a quote which is then applied to every confrontation in the movie.

Both Alice and Jill are adept at kick boxing, shooting, stabbing, pounding, and blowing up any man, women child, dog or monster that get in their way.

Violent scenes include:

• Alice running down the side of a skyscraper killing a force of Umbrella Corporation bad guys at the bottom
• Alice crashing a Harley motorbike through a church's stained glass window, then flinging the bike at a Licker (a nasty, mutated human bio-weapon) while simultaneously blowing up the bike and the Licker.
• people having the heads twisted and necks broken
• a knife embedded into a person's head
• people being shot in the head
• a woman committing suicide by jumping off of a building
• people being riddled with machine gun bullets, blown apart, and stabbed
• a child of middle-school age watching her father being shot and killed
• blood soaked mutated dogs tearing and ripping human bodies apart while dropping pieces of flesh over the ground.
• victims of violence being reanimated as zombies.

The characters in the film appear to be desensitised to all acts of violence. For example:

• Jill must shoot her partner after he is infected with the T virus. She is initially reluctant, but eventually does so, with no apparent regret
• Alice displays no emotion in any situation
• the survivors are unmoved by a room full of middle-school children zombies munching on human flesh.

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent, or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

As children under the age of eight years lack the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality, they would be terrified by the violence and scary images in this movie. There is a high probability that exposing young children to this film could result in psychological trauma.

In addition to the violence listed above, scary images are presented on a continuous basis, such as:

• flesh-eating zombies tearing their victims throats out and devouring pieces of human flesh
• a child zombie covered in blood and munching on a human arm
• people covered from head to foot in blood
• mutated monsters with fangs and two metre long tongues like lizard tongues
• the mutated monsters crawl over walls and ceilings
• the Nemesis creature is very frightening in appearance
• corpse-like mutants with worm ridden heads rising from graves and clutching at the feet of the survivors
• people transforming, with spikes tearing through arms
• images that look like large worms crawling under the skin
• Alice having wires and tubes protruding from her head and other body parts
• Alice , with wires and tubes, suspended in tank of liquid with air hoses protruding from her mouth
• people being injected with a green looking liquid
• the entire city destroyed by a nuclear blast.

Aged eight to thirteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

The above mentioned images and scenes could also frighten children between the ages of eight and thirteen years. The scary and violent images presented in the film are very realistic in appearance, and could still be traumatic for them.

The frequency and manner in which violent confrontations are presented, plus the behaviours and attitudes of the heroes, may also contribute towards desensitising children towards acts of violence and diminish their ability to resolve social conflict with peers.

Over the age of thirteen

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

The nature and frequency of the scary and violent images, as discussed above, the frequent use of very coarse language and the film's presentation of anti-social attitudes makes the viewing of Resident Evil: Apocalypse unsuitable for all adolescents under the age of eighteen years.

Product placement

Research shows that children, particularly children under the age of eight, are vulnerable to product placement in movies. Even if the child doesn't recall seeing a particular brand in the movie, they are likely to choose that brand in preference to another, if they have just seen it used or displayed in a movie. This effect may be exacerbated if the product is highlighted as part of the story or if an actor or character they admire is seen to endorse or enjoy the product.

The film is based upon the third series in the video game of the same name, aimed at teenage males. The film itself is structured like a video game and could be viewed as one long promotion for the Resident Evil series of video games.

Sexual references

The movie's two heroines, Alice and Jill, are portrayed as glamorous and sexy and wear tight fitting costumes at all times. For example, Alice spends the first ten minutes of the film wrapped in a revealing towel, while Jill is clad in a mini skirt and tube top.

Nudity and sexual activity

The film relies heavily upon the sex appeal of the two main characters, Alice and Jill. There are two scenes involving Alice seen fully nude from the side view. The scenes are not integral to the story.

In addition, in one scene, topless bikini clad zombies, representing zombie prostitutes, attempt to entice non-infected men into their clutches.

Use of substances

There is some mild substance use:

• Alice often smokes cigarettes; in one scene Alice 's smoking habit is integral to her survival.
• a brief scene involving a man drinking alcohol

Coarse language

Coarse language, ranging from the more mild ‘holy shit' to extreme profanity was used repeatedly, and was represented as a part of everyday language. The ‘F' word was used extensively, for example: ‘fuck the orders, mother fucker, who the fuck are you, fuck me, no fucking way, what the fuck' and more.

The movie's message

The film sends the message that violence is the only means, and an acceptable one, of resolving conflict.

The presentation of the character L.J., a foul-mouthed wise cracking ghetto black, could encourage stereotyping and prejudice.