Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

Movie Info

I can’t wait to see what the army of Alice clones will do!!!! Oh….never mind.

Alice (Milla Jovovich) leads a clone attack on Umbrella in Tokyo, only to lose her abilities in an attempt to kill Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts).  Now, Alice is trying to find her old allies in a rumored plague free place in Alaska called Arcadia.  When Alice only finds Claire Redfield (Ali Larter), a trip to California finds new hope in a closed prison.  Teaming with a former basketball player and model Luther West (Boris Kodjoe), Wendell (Fulvio Cecere), Crystal Wates (Kacey Barnfield), Bennett (Kim Coates), Kim Yong (Norman Yeung), and Angel Ortiz (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), Alice must trust Claire’s brother Chris (Wentworth Miller) to help the group escape the mutating zombies and reach an ocean bound ship.

Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, Resident Evil:  Afterlife is a zombie action thriller.  Following Resident Evil  Extinction in 2007, the film is the fourth film in the long-running franchise and released in 3D.  The movie incorporated video game aspects of Resident Evil 5, and received mostly negative reviews but continued to be a success at the box office.

He’s the Axeman!

After an improvement in Resident Evil:  Extinction, Resident Evil:  Afterlife doesn’t continue to improve the series.  Paul W. S. Anderson returns as director (he directed the original but produced the others in the series), and his name always raises a red flag with his track record.

Like every Resident Evil story, the writing is unnecessarily complex.  Be it the opening in Japan or the unnecessary stop in Alaska, the story just doesn’t need to be this hard.  There are aspects of the story I still don’t quite understand (and I always just pass off as an aspect of the video game).  The story also feels a bit unbalanced with the prison story shifting to the boat story for such a long ending sequence.

Milla Jovovich still is the owner of these films…though she has been cured of the T-Virus, this aspect of the story does not seem to have any effect since she can still do almost anything including jumping off buildings.  The story tries to provide Milla Jovovich some help.  Ali Larter returns as Claire Redfield and Prison Break star Wentworth Miller appears (unexplained) as Claire’s imprisoned brother.  Boris Kodjoe is nice as a romantic interest as Luther West, but Shawn Roberts just comes off as a comic book villain as Albert Wesker.

I just have a bad case of pink eye

Visually, Resident Evil:  Afterlife is also a step back from the more visual Resident Evil:  Extinction.  The nice desert setting is lost and the movie returns to the dark and dingy world.  The big lumbering Axemen are rather weak and remind me of the cheesy Nemesis of Resident Evil:  Apocalypse…which makes sense since Paul Jones returned from Resident Evil:  Apocalypse.  The movie also is filled with lots of slow-motion and “in your face” 3D action.

Resident Evil:  Afterlife isn’t as bad as the first two entries in the Resident Evil series but isn’t as good as the third film (which wasn’t that great either).  The series almost takes a different direction in this entry and in a series that has already twisted too much, it isn’t necessarily a good thing.  Resident Evil:  Afterlife was followed by Resident Evil:  Retribution in 2012.

Related Links:

Resident Evil (2002)

Resident Evil:  Apocalypse (2004)

Resident Evil:  Extinction (2007)

Resident Evil:  Retribution (2012)

Resident Evil:  The Final Chapter (2016)