Resident Evil: Afterlife

I liked this compilation of scenes. I liked the soundtrack; I liked the acting; I liked the settings; I liked the effects. As a game, it works greatly. The movie is a sum of chunks of stories. Most of them are action stories. A few are horror stories. Another few are mystery stories. And none of them are connected to each other. They just share common characters.

Honestly, the plot is just an excuse for great action scenes. And I liked the action scenes. I rate it zero for the story, ten for the technical quality. And I have to admit it: in the end, I liked it as a whole.

Plot: As Alice (Milla Jovovich) continues her fight against the nefarious Umbrella Corporation, she meets up with a group of survivors in Los Angeles, who are trying to reach the safe haven known as Arcadia.

So far, here's how the series has done, in my opinion: the first was great, the second was horrible, and the third, though somewhat laughable, was still entertaining. After seeing this one though, I think the series is starting to go downhill again. The movie delivers basically what you could expect: tons of zombie-killing action, some cardboard cutout characters, and a useless story. Afterlife succeeds in all of this.

Aside from the lead performance by Jovovich, I could hardly care less for any of the other actors. One of the unfortunately bad performances actually goes to Wentworth Miller, who played an agonizingly hollow Chris Redfield. And the story needed a complete re-do, because it was almost pointless. One example is the use of the Executioner from the game series. Though I thought his fight with Alice and Claire was cool, I was completely puzzled as to what his purpose in the movie was.

It does do well in the action sequences, including an awesome, though short, standoff on a rooftop. But some of the action is overdrawn thanks to the ridiculously large amount of slow-motion. If they ran the movie without slow-mo, I bet the movie would lose half of its running time. XD I also liked the soundtrack by media boys tomandandy and the film's use of 3D really helped during some of the more intense moments.

Overall it does have its perks and the 3D's good, but this is nothing more than a one-trick pony. Believe me; I'm a big fan of the games, and even I was disappointed.

This fourth Resident Evil instalment was only ever going to be worth seeing if it featured lots of amusing gore and entertaining action scenes that utilised the third dimension successfully. Evidently, director Anderson must've known this too, because nary a second is wasted on anything else. From the get go we're embroiled in a mass raid on Umbrella's high-tech underground headquarters by dozens of Alice replicates. It's Matrix-y slick, features a massive body count and is a great way to kick off proceedings, even if the CGI is occasionally substandard.

The remainder of the film becomes grubbier once it relocates to an abandoned maximum security prison surrounded by thousands of the "infected". Alice, and the ragtag bunch of Los Angeleno's she meets in the jail, encounter blood-thirsty zombies left, right and centre with murderous glee. The finest sequence on offer comes thanks to the inexplicably nonsensical inclusion of an unnamed 10ft creature with a mammoth axe-like weapon, who was apparently only introduced so we could witness its gruesome demise. With rain-drenched slow motion and heart pounding music, watching Alice and Claire despatch of this demented beast is a thrill.

To mention other dispensable elements of this movie – you know, acting, character development, dialogue, plot plausibility, etc – would be redundant for two reasons, (a) because your enjoyment of Afterlife can be measured wholly on your reaction to the above couple of paragraphs and (b) we all know that the aforementioned filmic elements will be close to non-existent anyhow.

Mindless fun.

3 out of 5 (1 - Rubbish, 2 - Ordinary, 3 - Good, 4 - Excellent, 5 - Classic)

I'm a huge fan of Milla Jovovich and the Resident Evil movies. The last one - "Resident Evil: Extinction" - I thought was a great movie and the best in the series so far.

So I had to see this latest installment, what a disappointing and mediocre movie it turned out to be. The 3D was so fuzzy and distracting throughout the film but even if it hadn't been in fuzzy 3D it still was badly directed and poorly written, with hardly any of the signature action scenes, and all the actors were very pitiable and amateurish, with an exceptionally lame lead villain. Most of the action was blah and boring, in routine slow mo cuts. Don't go to see this movie if you want good or creative action scenes or an interesting story.

Most of the actors made no impression whatsoever, with the exception of Milla and Wentworth Miller of "Prison Break" fame. And even Wentworth Miller was given little to do, he didn't have but a handful of lines in the movie and it was a waste of his considerable talent. I really hope that he does better movies and roles in the future. I think he could become a major movie star, but not with appearing in crappy movies like this.

I am giving it a generous 5 rating, and that is from a fans perspective. If I wasn't a fan I would give this movie a 3.

Please let the next Resident Evil have a different director than this sub par effort had, and please let it not be in horrifying 3D.

Alice was her usual badass in this installment in the resident evil franchise. The objective should never be to go in with high expectations, it's all about over the top action with a sprinkling of plot. This fits the bill. The storyline was a bit disappointing because it doesn't have much of a beginning or end, it all just kind of happens. Overall decent acting, good cinematography and zombie action. I thought Alice and Claire had good chemistry, and the newcomers held up as good cannon fodder.