We begin where the last film left off, as Alice (Jovovich) and Matt (Mabius) lock down the underground Hive to protect Raccoon City from the hordes of undead who were reanimated by a viral warfare agent. But a bunch of Umbrella Corp workers open the doors, like morons, and let the zombies out. While chaos consumes the city, we follow a few security workers (Guillory, Fehr, Kretchmann), a scientist (Harris) looking for his daughter (Vavasseur), and a souped-up Alice, who's been given genetic modifications to allow her to more effectively fight the undead.

Once again, the film plays like a videogame, with increasing levels of action and set pieces that test the characters' skills. The overall plot is cleverly constructed, but it pauses continually for utterly illogical battle scenes (if a nuke was falling from the sky, would you pause to see which of your mutants could win a hand-to-hand battle? Or would you board the helicopter and get out of there?). The result isn't scary, but it's exciting and extremely gripping.

Jovovich seems to be having a great time, bravely enduring all the outlandishly silly stunts, appearing once again in just a tea towel (or less), and glowering rather a lot. Other cast members get to do more actual acting, although poor Guillory never has a chance as the story's second-rung action girl. But the best thing is that director Witt actually manages, amid the chaos, to centre on the characters and create people we can cheer for, mourn when they get swarmed by zombies, marvel at when we discover their (many) secrets and even, shockingly, get rather excited about the prospect of a third film. The ending is a genuinely inventive cliffhanger that leaves us wanting much more.