Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) Dir. by Paul W.S. Anderson

While still out to destroy the evil Umbrella Corporation, Alice joins a group of survivors who want to relocate to the mysterious but supposedly unharmed safe haven known only as Arcadia.



Paul W.S. Anderson is really a hit or miss Director. He has done plenty of movies that are absolutely ridiculous that I still enjoy watching, like: Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon (Which I love!!!), Soldier, Resident Evil (the first one), Death Race, and his upcoming remake The Three Musketeers looks amazing. Unfortunately for Paul, his return to the series he started is less the stellar. I tried watching this movie the last four nights in a row and fell asleep three times. I DON'T fall asleep during movies. It isn't my style, and I must admit I have been really tired lately, but that shouldn't be an excuse.



The acting was atrocious. I can't think of a single performance other than Milla's that was even memorable. All she had to do was do the same thing she had done for the previous three films.



There were two scenes of the film that I really enjoyed though. One of them was the opening sequence, and the other was the last action sequence near the end. The thing is there was just so much boring stuff in the movie, and usually it is used to tell a story. This film didn't have a story. All of a sudden there was just random types of zombies. There was a giant guy that was never in the video games. He looked like Pyramid Head from Silent Hill, only instead of carrying a giant knife he was carrying some sort of meat tenderizer with a blade attached to it. The zombies from Resident Evil games 4 & 5 all of a sudden showed up with no explanation. They just popped up a few times in the film and La Plaga was never explained. The Redfield characters where underused. They had such a huge presence in the games, but in the movies they are just pointless. Claire has memory loss, but it is never resolved, so that subplot just dies out through the film. Wesker a.k.a. the most important villain in every single one of the video games, is even more underused, and kind of a pussy. Even the fact that they gave him the T-Virus and barely use that is horrible. It has been a long time since I had seen a film this bad, but it just seemed like they tried to film some cool scenes to use 3D, but didn't care about anything else in the film. I really hope they just stop now. Although, I wouldn't mind seeing someone else pick up the franchise, and tell the real video game story of Leon. Now that would be badass. Time will tell, but until then just don't waste your time with this film.

Entertainment Value: 3 out of 4 pointless characters in a film
Cinematic Value: 2 out of 4 pointless characters in a film