Just got back from seeing this.
It's not a great movie, but it's also not as bad as Ebert made it out to be (and I usually agree with him). The film suffers from two things: it's as shallow as a kiddie pool and lacks the ultra-violence associated with zombie flicks. On the plus side, I like that the zombies aren't the only antagonists: there are also killer dogs, monstrous "bio-weapons" with prehensile tongues, and a lumbering juggernaut of a mutant that serves as a one-Frankenstein army. And of course, the omniscient and evil Umbrella Corporation is behind it all. Who better to hate than slimey corporate villains?
Alice, the returning heroine from
Resident Evil, is back, mutated by the T-virus into a superhuman ass-kicking machine. She's joined by a tough female cop, a wise-cracking civilian, and a little girl who, though we haven't seen her before, will seem familiar. They're all trapped when the Umbrella Corporation cordons off Raccoon City in an attempt to contain the T-virus. In order to escape, they have to battle their way through hordes of the undead as well as other predatory manifestations of the dreaded virus. Meanwhile the Umbrella Corporation is enacting its ultimate solution...
There's so much going on here that I think the film would have benefitted from a longer running time. There are too many elements compressed into too short a time frame (though the film is open-ended, paving the way for another sequel).
I'm one of those who consider the first film a guilty pleasure, and
Resident Evil: Apocalypse, while broadening the scope of the original, doesn't quite match up. It's fun and generally well-done, but it's all a bit bland.
out of 
