Resident Evil: Afterlife review

It's said that when a movie franchise hits #4 you've gotta be giving this audience a reason to come back. Usually the trilogy does the trick. The "Resident Evil" films are... well hell... shit. In fact the only one that (for me) comes close to working as a movie is "Resident Evil: Apocalypse", which is by many considered the worst of the bunch. I HIGHLY disagree. The difference between these shit burgers and movies like "Machete" or "Piranha 3D" is that these take themselves VERY seriously. Sometimes unbearably serious to where you can't believe that none of these characters are commenting on why fucking ridiculous it all is. What writer/director/producer Paul W.S. Anderson has done is basically taken various things from these games and put them in the movie while making some other shit up that he probably feels fits right in. This is no longer a zombie story, it's a bad sci-fi story of the "Battlefield Earth" persuasion.

This fourth and nearly unwatchable installment opens with Alice and dozens of her clones breaking into an Umbrella Corporation underground compound in an attempt to kill what appears to be the head baddie, Albert Wesker. Wesker is basically a blond, weak and often hilarious rip off of Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith character from 'The Matrix' films. Speaking of that little set of movies it's ripped off about a dozen and half times here, which is funny since the movie is over TEN YEARS OLD NOW. And yet with all the updated technology we have manages to cheapen the look of the effects despite having more money than Wachowski's did back in 99' . No easy feet I'm sure. Anyways the first massive and crippling logical flaw occurs after Wesker escapes and Alice goes in for her close kill when he injects her with something that is said to have destroyed the T-virus cells in her body that made her super human. Because it made sense in all the other movies that the same thing that turns people in the zombies turns her into Supergirl. Milla Jovovich delivers a terrible line thanking him for making her human again and the plane crashes into a mountain with a CGI freeze frame that looks like it's from a PS2 game. And then she walks away from the crash unharmed and no other explanation is given.

That piece pretty much should kill the movie outright and yet hey... it continues to Alaska and later to a burned out L.A. where a group of survivors took up refuge in a prison from thousands of zombies that just upon Alice and old friend Claire's (Ali Later) arrival have gained the strength and knowledge to dig under the prison and burst up through thick concrete to gain entrance to the shower room... which still works. You'll find out why later. In the prison there's about seven characters, but the only important one is Chris Redfield (Claire's brother) who they think is a prisoner and keep him locked up. Ok, so after all that truly boring bullshit involving piss poor characters, plot holes, plot craters and weak CGI we get to the truly terrible action scenes.

The shower sequence involving giant axe/hammer man ought to go down as one of the dumbest action set pieces in modern cinema. Basically the entire scene is in slow motion and plays out like dumb geek action movie porn, but lacks any real action to appeal to people who might know a thing or two about action movies. So what you're left with is Ali and Milla soaked, brooding and basically ninja warrior women(with the use of wire work of course). As I said earlier if this shit didn't take itself so seriously this might all work (well to a point), instead we're forced to believed a lot of incredibly stupid shit without much reasoning. Like per-say why in a world of zombies is there a 9-foot tall man in with leather skin, a sack mask and a giant hammer axe? Where the fuck was he at when shit went down? How come when we first see Alice and Claire they're both dirty as can be and next when they're flying to L.A. they are completely clean and NOTICEABLY wearing make up? But Anderson doesn't provide answers just more stuff happening that he apparently thinks is cool.

Most of the other action scenes are merely set ups to make his wife (Milla Jovovich... who by the way could do better) look cool in super slow motion out running a poor looking explosions. Sadly it doesn't work either as often she just looks kind of goofy. All this crap builds up to an enormously idiotic fight with Wesker in a giant white room under a ship in the ocean. How does it all end up? How it always does in these films. Now... why do I loathe this one, but actually somewhat enjoy the second and often considered worst installment? "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" was directed by Alexander Witt, a well known and impressive second unit director and cinematographer. You can see much of his work in Ridley Scott films with "Body of Lies" providing his best photographic work to date in my opinion. Witt seems to be the only one who might think these movies don't need to be as serious as Anderson wants. So basically he fills the movie with a good number of impressive physical stunts, over the top supporting characters and actually utilizes his R-rating for more than two fucks and a couple head shots. But what makes it all more funny and entertaining is that the zombie stuff is pretty cheap looking and he shoots it more like a parody of a zombie action movie. Witt might just get the joke, but Anderson sure as hell doesn't.

To him these movies are something else that I cannot begin to understand. The 3D (which apparently uses the same cameras as "Avatar") is very weak as are the effects and the action pieces. Furthermore Anderson can't have gone over this script hard enough to figure out it didn't make a lick of sense after the opening and worse yet neither did the actors. It's been a while since I've hated a sci-fi movie as much as this and yet people will eat it up like it's going out of style. Why? There are TONS of better films about girls kicking ass and looking good. There are TONS of better zombie movies, sci-fi movies and action movies out right now. I imagine in a few years there will be another "Resident Evil" and I imagine it will be pretty bad too... but honestly I can't imagine how Anderson or anybody else could come in and deliver a worst movie. "Resident Evil: Afterlife" has actually taken Anderson down in my mind to the level of Uwe Boll now.