Resident Evil: Apocalypse Explained: Plot and Ending

Resident Evil: Apocalypse is the 2004 sequel to Resident Evil (2002), directed by Alexander Witt in his first feature and written by Paul W. S. Anderson. It came out in the US on 10 September 2004. Milla Jovovich returns as Alice, and the film brings in two characters from the games, Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivera, plus the Nemesis. It's the second of Anderson's six Resident Evil films. Full spoilers below. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

Before the story begins#

The first film ended with Alice and Matt Addison escaping the Hive, the Umbrella Corporation lab under Raccoon City, only for Umbrella scientists to take them both. Matt was sent to the Nemesis Program, the Hive was ordered reopened, and Alice woke in a deserted hospital to find the city overrun. Apocalypse opens in the same hours. (Resident Evil (2002 film); Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

The main cast, from the Wikipedia credits: Milla Jovovich as Alice, Sienna Guillory as Jill Valentine, Oded Fehr as Carlos Olivera, Thomas Kretschmann as Major Cain, Jared Harris as Dr Charles Ashford, Sophie Vavasseur as his daughter Angie, Mike Epps as L.J., Sandrine Holt as the reporter Terri Morales, Razaaq Adoti as Sergeant Peyton Wells and Iain Glen as Dr Isaacs. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

The city is sealed#

The Umbrella team sent to investigate the Hive is overrun, and the T-virus gets out into the city above. Umbrella quarantines Raccoon City and pulls out the people it needs. During the evacuation, the car carrying Angela Ashford, daughter of the Umbrella researcher Dr Charles Ashford, crashes and she disappears. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

Jill Valentine, a disgraced officer of the police special unit S.T.A.R.S., goes back to her station to tell her colleagues to get out. At the only bridge out of town, where Umbrella is evacuating civilians, she meets her old partner, Sergeant Peyton Wells. A civilian turns and bites Wells. When the infection reaches the bridge, Umbrella's commander, Major Timothy Cain, seals the exit and drives everyone back into the city. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

Elsewhere, Umbrella abandons its own soldiers. Carlos Olivera and Nicholai Ginovaef join up with what's left of the police, but their position is overrun and Carlos is bitten. Alice, meanwhile, wakes in the empty hospital and makes her way through the city, collecting weapons. She saves Jill, Wells and Terri Morales just before the dead overwhelm them. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

The Nemesis and Dr Ashford's deal#

Umbrella releases its newest weapon, the Nemesis, a mutated super soldier. It kills the remaining S.T.A.R.S. officers and then starts hunting Alice. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

Dr Ashford hacks into the city's cameras and contacts Alice's group. He'll arrange their evacuation if they rescue Angela, and he makes the same offer to Carlos and Nicholai. He tells them what Umbrella is planning: to destroy Raccoon City with a nuclear warhead and burn out the infection. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

The Nemesis ambushes Alice's group on the way. Wells turns and Jill has to kill him. Alice fights the Nemesis, gets hurt and leads it away from the others. Jill and Terri pick up a stranded civilian, L.J., and meet Carlos, and together they find Angela, though Terri and Nicholai are killed along the way. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

Angela tells them where the virus came from. Her father created the T-virus to treat her genetic condition, and she needs an antivirus to stop herself turning. Alice uses some of it to cure Carlos. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

Alice against the Nemesis#

Dr Ashford sends them to an extraction point where a helicopter is waiting, but Umbrella's troops are there first. Cain kills Ashford. He reveals that Alice was enhanced with the T-virus and forces her to fight the Nemesis. Alice beats it down, then stops. She has recognised the Nemesis as Matt. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

Matt turns on Cain and attacks the Umbrella troops, and he's killed while protecting Alice. The survivors take the helicopter and throw Cain out of it, and the dead get him. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

The ending explained#

As the helicopter lifts off, the warhead goes off over Raccoon City. The blast wave brings the helicopter down. Alice saves Angela from the crash and is impaled on a metal pole, and she dies. On television, the explosion is put down to a meltdown at the city's nuclear power plant, so nobody connects it to Umbrella. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

Alice wakes in an Umbrella research facility. She has a new ability: she can move things with her mind, and she uses it to kill a guard. Jill, Carlos, L.J. and Angela help her get out. As they leave, Dr Alexander Isaacs, a senior Umbrella scientist, says the escape is exactly what Umbrella wants. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

So the ending flips the survivors' win. They've escaped Raccoon City and got Alice back, but Umbrella has brought Alice back from the dead, given her psychic powers and set her loose on purpose. She's no longer just a victim of the T-virus. She's Umbrella's project, and Isaacs is watching. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

The film doesn't explain the plan. It leaves open what Isaacs wants from Alice, what happened to the Hive, and where the survivors are headed. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

How it connects to Extinction#

Resident Evil: Extinction jumps years ahead. The T-virus has spread around the world and turned much of it to desert. Alice travels alone because Umbrella can track her whenever she uses her powers, and Carlos and L.J. are now part of a convoy of survivors led by Claire Redfield. Isaacs's plan turns out to be about Alice's blood: he's been cloning her, hoping to make a cure. (Resident Evil: Extinction)

Two of the escapees don't come back. Angela is never seen again in the series, and Jill is missing until the end of Resident Evil: Afterlife. (Resident Evil: Extinction; Resident Evil: Afterlife)

How it differs from the games#

Apocalypse takes more from the games than the first film did, almost all of it from Resident Evil 3, and changes what it takes. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

• Jill shares the lead. In Resident Evil 3 she's the hero, fighting her way out as the city falls. Here she's Alice's partner. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis)
• The Nemesis has a face. In the game it's an Umbrella bioweapon sent to kill the surviving S.T.A.R.S. members. The film keeps it killing S.T.A.R.S. officers but makes it Matt, and gives Alice the final fight. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil: Apocalypse)
• Carlos's name is spelt differently. The games call him Carlos Oliveira, a member of Umbrella's own mercenary force sent into the city. The film keeps the idea of an Umbrella soldier left to die. Nicholai is borrowed from the same game. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil: Apocalypse)
• The city dies differently. In the games Raccoon City is destroyed by a government missile at dawn on 1 October 1998. In the film it's Umbrella's own nuclear bomb, passed off as a power plant accident. (Resident Evil 3: Nemesis; Resident Evil: Apocalypse)
• The T-virus has a new inventor. In the games it comes from Umbrella co-founder James Marcus's research. Charles and Angela Ashford were made for the film, and the games' Ashford family, including Alexia Ashford, are unrelated. (Resident Evil 0; Resident Evil Code: Veronica; Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

Where it fits#

Apocalypse is the bridge between the first film's one-building horror and the end-of-the-world films that follow it. Every film is listed in every Resident Evil movie in order, and the games' own version of the city's last days is on the Resident Evil timeline. (Resident Evil: Apocalypse; Resident Evil: Extinction)