Nemesis. Alice gains the upper hand over the supersoldier, though she ceases fighting after realizing that he is Matt Addison, mutated by Umbrella's experiments. Nemesis turns on Major Cain and attacks the Umbrella troops, but is killed protecting Alice. The rest of the survivors seize the helicopter; they eject Major Cain from it, and he gets killed by the zombies, including a zombified Dr. Ashford. As the survivors escape, the nuclear bomb detonates over the city, and the resulting blast wave causes the helicopter to crash. Alice sacrifices herself to save Angela and is impaled on a metal pole. T.V. footage attributes the nuclear attack to a meltdown of the city's nuclear power plant, covering up Umbrella's involvement. Alice wakes up in an Umbrella research facility and escapes with help from Olivera, Valentine, L.J., and Angela. As they are escaping, Dr. Alexander Isaacs, a top-ranking Umbrella employee, reveals that Alice's escape is part of Umbrella's plan for her. Cast Themes Media studies scholar Stephen Harper said that both Apocalypse and the first Resident Evil film present "highly ambiguous" perspectives on the themes of corporate power, race, gender and sexuality. Describing them both as postmodern and postfeminist texts, Harper argued that, despite containing some progressive elements including feminist themes that undermine patriarchal power, the films also played into several stereotypes. He said the relationship between Alice and Valentine differs from interactions between male characters in action films as seen by a lack of camaraderie and co-operation between the two and, unlike male characters in Apocalypse, both Valentine and Alice are separately shown being "protective and nurturing" of the young Angela; Harper stated even violent action heroines are often portrayed with such characteristics. Harper also criticized how their revealing clothing and camera angles objectified Alice and Valentine throughout the film, and noted that through the African-American character L.J. Apocalypse showed an "ironic awareness" of racist stereotypes, though "it stops short of challenging them and, indeed, often deploys them". Douglas Kellner from the University of California in Los Angeles argued the film's ending played "on fears of out of control nuclear technology and government cover-ups". A news segment shown in the film, which claimed that reports of corporate wrongdoing were false and that people should instead be thanking the Umbrella Corporation, was "a barely disguised allegory of lying by corporations and the state during the Bush-Cheney era". Production Pre-production While promoting the first