Resident Evil: Afterlife

Since no one actually VOTED for this movie, the review will be short and sweet.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I haven't seen ANY of the other Resident Evil movies, just played the games.

Basically I went into the theater with very minimal expectations.

So I was not at all surprised when I viewed a ho hum mash up of action and horror movie cliches that was barely worth the price of admission, clocking in at an hour and a half. This is one of those rare movies that could have been better if it were a bit longer, if the dramatic tension played out for longer, a little more exposition here or there, etc.

Resident Evil: Afterlife is a film that is all style and little if any substance.

For those who don't know the back story of Resident Evil, the Umbrella Corporation has unleashed a deadly virus that transforms people into zombies and has wiped out most of civilization.

In the opening act Alice (Milla Jovovich) and her clones storm the evil Umbrella corporation's headquarters en masse. The real Alice stows away on the evil dude (didn't catch his name)'s escape helicopter as the base self destructs. As they fight on the helicopter is crashes, and Alice brushes herself off and gets in a plane and flies away or something. Yeah, I was confused.

The meat of the film is Alice's search for Arcadia, a refuge for survivors of the virus that has devastated the planet.

She meets up with a small group of survivors holed up in an abandoned prison, surrounded by a crowd of infected. This is where the horror elements come into play, and where the movie (briefly) shines.

Unfortunately, the rest is just too bogged down with "action movie coolness". Infinite ammo guns, ninja stars, bullet time... this is all stuff I have seen before in other movies, far too many times. It is not 1999 anymore, it is high time to do away with bullet time.

Some pros include the music score, with was uniformly pretty cool, and the production design, although much of it is CG. The movie looks and sounds very good. Also the acting is decent, nothing Oscar caliber here of course but serviceable for this type of movie.

Cons include most everything story wise, although perhaps I should indeed have watched the first three (...naaah...). The plot and characters are so two dimensional that the whole film feels flat, even if it is in 3D.

Oh and speaking of the 3D, it is nothing revolutionary, and mostly only pops up in the action segments (duh) but it was fairly well done and not headache inducing. Can't say it really added anything to the film however.

On the whole, Resident Evil: Afterlife cannot be faulted too much because it is exactly what fans of the franchise wanted, I'm sure. More action, more violence, more gore. Story and characters are always secondary in these movies.

It is always a shame when you see filmmakers keep churning out the same formulaic stories with different action sequences plugged in, but long as audiences keep paying for it, its hard to blame them.




Attendance: 0/5
Crazy Fan Boy Factor: 0/5
Crowd Response: 0/5

-----------------------------------------------------

Production Value: 4/5
Action: 3/5
Plot: 2/5
Reloads: None




Overall: 5/10