Review of Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) by D R — 29 Jan 2012

Resident Evil: Afterlife is the fourth entry in the video game movie franchise. After Alice's clones wreck the the umbrealla cooperation in Tokyo, the sinister Wesker ends up escaping by destroying Alice's clones along with Tokyo. The real Alice finds Wesker & ends up loosing gain of the T-Virus. Now, Alice must go on a journey to search for survivors who will help her take on the rest of the umbrealla cooperation & the undead before the infection keeps on spreading.

Afterlife is probably the best that has come close to the games. That being said, with the plot, acting & pacing, I can't say this is a good film. In my opinion, Its the worst in the series. Its not terrible but its far from good. Afterlife is decent at best & it should be glad that I'm giving it that. Afterlife opens up with a huge battle featuring Alice clones fighting against umbrella security in Tokyo. That just so happened to be the best scene in the film for me. After Tokyo gets destroyed, it begins to drag until 50 minutes into the film where the action picks up again. From there, the action is pretty much nonstop til the end. Its just not as thrilling like the opening sequence was. Still, the action sequences were fun while they lasted. Now for the plot. All I have to say is "Really? Alice looses all of her strength from the T-Virus but yet she still manages to act like she still has it being a human. yea, that makes sense. So I just went with the stupid plot and along for the ride, even though I felt awkward doing so. All your going to get from this entry is silly action that doesn't make any sense what so ever. I guess thats just the way video game movies are now days. No wonder they don't succeed. The first three entries were so much better & more exciting. This one just falls apart from what could have been the best one in the series if it hadn't been for so many holes. I don't know what Paul W.S. Anderson was thinking but that was not filmmaking. It seemed that Paul relied on effects & just forgot about everything else. I have to give him credit for some of the things he brought to this film. One, being the effects/make-up. The CGI was good with an infected zombie opening its mouth. Another was the zombie dogs. They looked disgustingly deadish. When they transformed, the CGI was amazing! Thats the way effects need to be done in every movie. So, Paul spent his money wisely throwing all of that in. I also have to give points for the 3D as well. Its possibly the best 3D I have seen. Everything was pretty much in your face. Now, thats what I call 3D. I think Paul also made a good decision bringing the character of Chris & some of the infected to life from the Resident Evil 5 game. That was probably his smartest move for this film. My biggest complaint about the film was the atrocious acting. It was so hard to watch these actors including Mila at times using these cliched lines. It seemed like they were rehersing for a play. Thats how bad it was. I can't really put the actors down for that since the director can't give them anything to work with. These actors have so much potential but yet the director won't give them a chance to bring out their star power. Overall, Afterlife is fun but still a fairly decent movie. I can just only hope the fifth one makes up for it by pacing, acting & plotting issues. Im still all into the Resident Evil series but if they keep turning out like this one, my feelings might change. I recommend Afterlife if your only a fan of the series and games. Afterlife is still watchable but nothing special. I'm giving Afterlife three stars only for the action and mildly entertaining experience.

3 stars.