Looks good, does nothing

Rating: 3/10 (2 June 2011)

At this point in the franchise, I have to ask, who is still watching the Resident Evil movies that actually enjoys them? Does anyone glean any excitement, interest or just plain, simple entertainment value from these films? Because, based on what is on display in Resident Evil: Afterlife, unless you are interested in watching a stream of unexciting action sequences with little or no grounding in reality, you will mostly likely walk away from the film with nothing but a feeling of derision.
Resident Evil: Afterlife picks up where the last entry, Resident Evil: Extinction, ended, with Alice (Milla Jovovich) and her endless stream of clones assaulting the Japanese headquarters of the Umbrella Corporation, who have caused the majority of the world's population to be transformed into flesh eating zombies (I hate it when that happens). After bringing down the head of this particular unit, Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts, one of the worst actors I have seen in some time), Alice travels to Alaska to meet up with a group of survivors led by Claire (Ali Larter). However, she finds only Claire still there, and Claire's memories are gone and she has a device resembling a beetle attached to her chest that is causing both her memory loss and some rather anti-social behavior. Alice and Claire decide to fly down the coast in search of other survivors, finding a group holed up in a prison outside L.A., comprised, among others, of Luther (Boris Kodjoe), Hollywood producer Bennet (Kim Coates), and Claire's brother, Chris (Wentworth Miller). The group must try to escape the legions of the undead surrounding the prison and reach a large tanker ship off the coast that represents their only hope for survival.
Resident Evil: Afterlife is a film that exists for one purpose and one purpose only: to string together fight after fight, shootout after shootout, all of them choreographed and photographed with various slick camera techniques that should, I suppose, raise your pulse. That is all the film even attempts to accomplish, because it doesn't really try to do anything else. The story, what there is of one, is both barely an afterthought and mostly cribbed from other zombie movies, such as Night of the Living Dead. Afterlife isn't even trying to be a horror film anymore, which its predecessors weren't really accomplished at, but gave a passing thought to the concept. This is an action movie, through and through, but since the characters are basically non-entities, there is nobody to root for, so all you are doing is watching bodies and objects in motion, with nothing to give any additional depth to any of the proceedings.
The acting is mostly a non-issue, because the people on screen are there simply to shoot guns or get knocked off in various zombie attacks. When any of the characters get killed, there isn't even a moment's thought as to their well-being; they are cardboard cutouts, not people. The film introduces Chris as Claire's brother, but that plot development is as pointless as any other in the film, because other than the briefest exchange of dialogue to establish this fact, it serves absolutely no purpose to the story or to the characters. The film does itself an even greater disservice by casting Roberts in the role of the villain, because you would swear they just plucked a random body off the street, not actually went through the process of hiring someone who claims to be an actor, as Robert's performance is akin to someone reading text off a teleprompter. How can the audience root against someone who is so lifeless, without even an iota of energy?
Are the action sequences cool looking? Sure, but nothing so impressive to make your forget films such as The Matrix where some of the techniques and images were obviously lifted from. And without any feeling to proceedings, there is nothing for you to invest in. There is no suspense, no excitement, no horror, no nothing to Afterlife. It just is, sitting there looking pretty, and isn't even afforded the decency of a real ending, just some scenes serving as a potential setup for yet another Resident Evil movie. And, as I started off this review, is there any audience that really wants another one? Is there someone waiting, clamoring for yet another Resident Evil film? I find it hard to believe.