Resident Evil: Afterlife
Movie Review
"Resident Evil: Afterlife"
Review by Eric D. Snider
Grade: C+
Rating: R
Released: Friday, September 10, 2010
Directed by:
Cast:
I remember having a lot of unanswered questions at the end of "Resident Evil: Extinction." What did I just watch? Why did I watch it? Is it too late to change to a career that will not require me to watch things like this? None of those questions are answered in part 4 of the franchise, "Resident Evil: Afterlife," but at least you get to hear a bad guy say, "Tell security to flood the main entrance with nerve gas."
It's been a few years since the events of the last film (whatever those might have been; re-reading my review did little to jog my memory), and Alice (Milla Jovovich) is still seeking revenge against the Umbrella Corporation, whose dangerous experimentation with viral weaponry turned most of the Earth's population into flesh-eating zombies. Alice acquired super powers at some point, but an injection early in this film makes her an ordinary human again. Then she walks away from a plane crash that otherwise left nothing but smoldering wreckage. You know, like ordinary humans do.
Having sent her fellow survivors to a supposed safe zone in Alaska, Alice the warrior now endeavors to catch up with them. She manages to find Claire (Ali Larter) but no one else, and Claire has amnesia. Somehow they both wind up in what used to be a prison, holed up with a small band of other survivors hiding from the zombie horde outside the prison gates. Their compatriots include a professional athlete named Luther (Boris Kodjoe), a smug Hollywood producer named Bennett (Kim Coates), and an alleged killer named Chris (Wentworth Miller).
I'll tell you one thing, this is not exactly a cavalcade of stellar acting. Everyone speaks in throaty whispers, with even casual lines given a menacing, tough-guy spin. This sounds particularly absurd when it's Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter conversing, as these are two of the least expressive actresses currently working. They are rivaled by Shawn Roberts, who plays supervillain Albert Wesker (a role previously played by Jason O'Mara) as if he were a robot. (Spoiler alert: He is not a robot.)
But Paul W.S. Anderson, writer of all four films and director of the first one, is back in the driver's seat here, and he pulls off some nifty visual effects. Shooting in 3D, he makes use of the gimmick without being too gimmicky, and he avoids letting the action scenes become chaotic or confusing. In fact, he tends to go the opposite way, showing everything in slow-motion so we won't miss anything. What we're seeing may be absurd half the time, but at least we can see it.
Oh, it's silly stuff, sure. Chris and Claire turn out to have an extraordinarily coincidental connection to one another. A Goliath-size zombie with a burlap sack over his head shows up to cause trouble, with no explanation ever given for what he is or why he's so powerful. (I assume he's from one of the "Resident Evil" video games.) The subplot about Chris' supposedly murderous tendencies adds nothing and goes nowhere. Like pretty much all of Anderson's films ("Mortal Kombat," "Event Horizon," "Death Race"), this one is half-baked. The half that's baked isn't too bad, though.
Note: Contrary to regular industry practice, this film was not screened for critics before opening.
Grade: C+
Rated R, a lot of bloody violence, some harsh profanity
1 hr., 37 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 9 comments
September 10, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Yeah, it seems you were confused by some of the stuff lifted straight out of the games. The Chris/Claire connection is common knowledge among fans of the game, and the concept of superpowered zombies with burlap sacks on their heads -- usually equipped with chainsaws -- has been a pretty iconic image of the series after Resident Evil 4 (and, come to think of it, maybe it's not a coincidence that it shows up in the fourth movie).
I'm not defending the movie, of course, since this stuff sounds absurd in this context, but I figured I'd enlighten you a bit.
September 10, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Confirmation: That big dude with the axe and the burlap is from Resident Evil 5, and so is a lot of the other stuff in the movie, including the appearance of Chris as a main character. In fact, pretty much everything Wesker does in the movie was taken straight from RE5.
On another note, I seem to remember hearing somewhere that PWSA spent a good chunk of the movie's budget on buying the same 3D tech they used for Avatar because he didn't want to half-bake the process a la Clash of the Titans, and judging by this review, he managed to pull that off. Now, if he can just become a better director . . .
September 10, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Dear Eric,
Thank you for your dedication to your craft. Not everyone will buy tickets and put off sleep to watch an unscreened movie then write a review which will still be published on opening day -- especially since much of your readership would never watch this film. You are a good man, and have brought me joy.
Cordially,
Jacob
September 10, 2010 at 10:14 pm
Both RE4 and RE5 had burlap sack dudes. Maybe the movie is borrowing more heavily from RE5, but there was a friggin' burlap sack guy on the freakin' cover of RE4. Don't question me, man!
September 10, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Apologies for using "freakin" and "friggin" in such close proximity.
September 13, 2010 at 5:08 pm
You just need "flippin" to complete the trifecta of f-bomb substitutes.
October 4, 2010 at 1:24 am
I really, really enjoyed seeing this film with some friends at a late showing. Having seen a handful of 3D movies, this was one of the first to use the extra dimension effectively to create a real sense of depth. Plus, I maintain that the gimmick of 3D and the challenge of creating a truly excellent movie are incompatible - you either make the movie as excellent as possible or design the entire movie around its visual style. RE:A does the latter very well.
I maintain that there's a difference between movies like this, which maintain a sense of style and cinematography, and films like Transformers which basically clang along dumbly for a few hours before ending. Resident Evil: Afterlife is not a good movie by any thematic sense of the word, but it has a definite feeling of momentum, visual, acuity and fun which makes the theater experience worthwhile.
I actually read a review which compared this movie to Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi, and strangely that's the way I appreciated this movie: as a collection of setpieces and elements that don't have to cohere into some solid whole to be enjoyed.
October 9, 2010 at 12:55 am
Suskie, I assume I'm the one your second comment is directed at, so here goes. I own Resident Evil 4. I have beaten it multiple times. I am well aware of the fact that there are burlap-sack men in RE4. In fact, I don't recall saying that they weren't in that game. All I said was that the makers of Afterlife lifted a lot of stuff from RE5; in other words, I pretty much agreed with you. Why did you get upset at me again?
November 28, 2010 at 4:29 am
from the first scenes i was thinking how hard will people complain this mess.
i really lost hope going to any other resident evil.what was that all about? can any one tell me why the plain was landing on the ship from the tower side?