Resident Evil: Afterlife

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Rating (from metacritic.com): 37/100

Storyline (from IMDB.com):
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.

Source: Netflix

Review:

So, we’re on to the 4th, and unfortunately not final, Resident Evil movie. We start some four years after the end of the world, without any real idea of when that happened. I assume it was sometime after the 2nd movie but before the 3rd, based on what we saw in those movies. We see a zombie outbreak in Tokyo, then the ending from the last movie is wrapped up---with a ton of Alice clones assaulting the Umbrella corporate headquarters (which for some reason is in Tokyo; there is a fun little reference to the original name of the game series, Biohazard.) Maybe my memory is faulty, but I got the impression that their HQ was in Europe somewhere. Anyway, the Alices kick ass, and get to Wesker, at which point we see the real Alice get her powers taken away. Yeah, because they really needed to do that. I’m sorry, but that has been the most under-played part of the series. We see her get these superpowers at the end of the 2nd movie, then they're mostly ignored during the 3rd, and we get only one scene with them at the start of the 4th. I agree with Alice, thank the man for getting rid of the powers you never really used. I’m willing to bet she gets re-exposed in the next movie. Oh, you didn’t hear? They’re making a 5th movie, and dear god, I hope it’s the last one, though I doubt it.

Moving on, after Alice gets in another helicopter crash (kind of running theme with the writer, who happened to have directed this one, too), she goes looking for the survivors she ditched to join her in a game of Revenge Society with Umbrella. She finds a very screwed up Claire, another character not wasn’t used effectively, and takes her along. The pair flies down the west coast of the US, looking for survivors. They enter Los Angeles to find it burning - for years and locate a group of survivors in a prison surrounded by the undead. Finally, characters using their heads in a zombie movie! The group in the prison is full of troupes, with all of them fulfilling their roles and dying for no reason. We are introduced to Chris, a character who should have been around for much longer in my opinion. The zombies learn how to burrow, and some learn to swim---even growing face squids. The survivors have to flee their prison when the ‘Axeman’ shows up and destroys the front gates, letting in the zombie hordes. There’s a bunch running around and some cool fights, with the best use of quarters in the post-apocalyptic world. The writer completely misses what would have been a totally awesome scene, with our survivors zipping through the ruins of LA, driving a STRYKER ATTACK VEHICLE! There are no words for the scene I made up while watching them crawl through some dirty hole in the ground. They finally get to Arcadia, which is some ship that’s been picking up survivors. Hey, another group using their heads to survive the end of the world!

Of course, nothing is what is seems and the ship is really a way for Umbrella to collect humans for experiments. Wait, what? Why do you need to keep experimenting on people? There’s no point. There are no governments to buy weapons, you already have a cure for the virus, and it’s a waste of resources. But, it 's a big evil corporation. Pay no attention to logic! Think only of the cool action scenes and the little scraps of homage we give you. Wait, where are you going? Don’t leave! Buy this movie. You know you really like it!

That is exactly how I feel about the series at this point. Meanwhile, there’s another big showdown between Alice and Wesker, where we find out he’s some kind of horrible mutant, the traitor gets his just desserts (again) and they out-smart the bad guy. Then, there’s the ‘Oh shit, Jill’s back! And they’re doing another one!’ moment at the end.

This movie just couldn’t keep me interested. I’m glad I didn’t go see it in theaters because I wouldn’t have liked paying $20 for the ‘experience’ of seeing it on the big screen. I wasn’t surprised to see that The Rule of Cool reigned supreme in this film, but it was way overdone at some points. There’s also Mila ‘I only use weapons in pairs’ Jovovich giving her usual one-note performance. Look at it, except in the first film she carries two of everything: 9mm pistols, stubby MP5s, kukris, katanas, and shotguns. I hadn’t noticed until the opening of the movie that she has two katanas on her back. Those are hand-and-a-half swords. Holding one in each hand is really hard to do and would be awkward as hell.

It was also annoying to see the Hard-Case Alice get weak for a moment, and the formerly weak Claire have to give her a short reminder. I think if the lines had been reversed it would have worked better.

The plot was thin, the action was lacking and the horror was telegraphed well in advance. Characters die and you just didn’t care. The writer didn’t want to deal with some stuff, so he just went ‘nope, not gonna do that’ and teased us with what might have been. They leave a character behind, flashing back to him for no obvious reason. Oh, and the bombs. I forgot about this. Early in the movie, they blow up a bomb in Tokyo, and it looks like it's imploding rather than exploding. It destroys a large amount of area, too. When they use the bomb again and it explodes, it doesn’t have nearly the same range. Sort of like the movie itself.

Final Thoughts: The movie could have done better, but I felt like it didn’t even try.

It was a BAD movie.

Coming Soon: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow