Review of Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) by Heathen W — 21 Oct 2012

I was looking forward to this film. Like, nice to see a smart sequel with lots of Milla Jovovich action scenes, I was thinking in the video rental store.

So it was sort of unfortunate that the movie review I'm typing here will be a negative one. Sure, it does have nice action scenes, although far out. Sure, it has well done sets and surroundings, metal surfaces, white steel, black helicopters etc create a scifi atmosphere. And lots of explosions and expensive looking special effects.

But the area where things happen is strangely narrow, despite of the shiny places in the end of the movie; its dull despite of the action oriented screenplay and short duration; Milla Jovovich should have even more action, especially some kind of action which makes sense, not just senseless shooting around; There is not really any storyline to speak of.. The film is Just special effects. ; The soundscape is not that special, really, actually its very monotoneus; Not particularly impressive acting, especially I was a bit surprised about Milla Jovovich's very bored looking and unemotional appearance.. (I remember her in Jeanne D'Arc and the Fifth Element); the characters are incredibly flat and dimensionless, there is no depth, despite the attempted themes of family reunion, wandering around with friends etc. ; Matrix style effects exploitation and recycling of old ideas from earlier Resident Evil movies.

In short, we have here a promising start for an action film sequel which suddenly turns out to be a flat, dimensionless pancake with unenthusiastic actors and silly storytelling. It does have nice fight scenes but still manages to remain a rather dull, short, purposeless thing.

Still I think that the better movies were definitely Apocalypse and Extinction in this franchise. I don't think this series gets any better than those. This one is more like an expensive double lenght episode of a television series.

I do think that the fight by Ali Larter's 'Claire Redfield'-character against the huge hooded executor-like thug mutant with the huge self-built hammer or axe was by far the best scene in the whole film and responsible for the other one of the stars I rated this film with.