I Don't Believe in This Afterlife

Rating: 4/10 (11 September 2010)

Paul W.S. Anderson claims to be a "big fan" of the Resident Evil games, however like a father encouraging his son to live his life while he constantly undermines everything he does, his actions betray his words. I'm sure his intentions are good, but as they say, the road to hell is paved in good intentions. Apologists for his Resident Evil movies will say "lighten up, it's based on a video game, it doesn't have to be smart." I'm so tired of that argument. Just because a movie's based on a video game, doesn't mean it has to be mindless action with no coherent plot. Roger Ebert once said video games will never be art. That may be true, but most of them do have a story to tell. And if these stories are to be given any justice on the big screen, filmmakers can't disregard the source material. The worst thing about this is that I had to pay 3D prices to see this movie (it's not being shown in a regular format). So am I going to have to buy a 3D TV to watch this when it comes out on Blu-ray? Not likely, because I'm never going to watch this movie again.
Alice (Milla Jovovich), the main character of the previous installments returns in this one looking prettier than ever. She has ruby-red lipstick, makes a "duck-face" when she fights, and wears a designer pilot outfit. In a post-apocalyptic world infested with zombies, who has time to get dressed specifically to fly a plane? Even her clones all have matching outfits, hairdos, and flawless skin. We get it Paul Anderson, your wife is hot, can we move along with the movie please? Anyway, the beginning of the movie takes place in Japan. The Alice clones infiltrate Umbrella's underground facility in an attempt to enact their revenge on one Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts). What's not clear is what is Wesker's position in Umbrella's corporate structure? We don't know, but the clones need someone to blame. They wreck havoc on the facility, and kill the guards using guns, throwing stars, psychic abilities, and slow-motion. These clones treat their lives with reckless abandon; jumping backwards out of a window while shooting at nothing, and detonating explosives in close proximity to themselves. When one dies, another takes it's place. It's okay, because all know clones have no soul. Once the kamikaze clones do their job, we're conveniently left with one Alice to follow. Somehow, she makes it to Alaska on a single engine plane and while there she meets up with an old friend, Claire Redfield (Ali Larter). However, something has happened to Claire that prevents the two of them from catching up on old times. Good, because who wants the character's gap between "Extinction" and "Afterlife" to be bridged with needless dialog? In any event, after this non-reunion, and without refueling, they fly to LA in search of the fabled safe haven known as "Arcadia."
While in LA, they "crash" land on the roof of a building, and meet up with a group of survivors. This group includes a Hollywood producer (Kim Coates), a struggling actress (Kacey Barnfield), and a famous athlete (Boris Kodjoe) to name a few. Apparently LA is filled with cliché archetypes. They use an unnecessarily 30-story high prison as a place of refuge from the zombies, and the interior of this prison has like 100 torches scattered about. At the bottom of the prison, locked in a cage, is Chris Redfield (Prison Break's Wentworth Miller). Oh I get it; Wentworth Miller played a character known for breaking out prisons and Chris... Forget it. Chris and Claire are siblings, but you wouldn't know it by the way they act. At least Claire has a reason for being emotionally distant. The group finds the location of Acadia, and have to fight their way through hordes of zombies, and a curiously placed hooded axeman, known as the "Executioner" in the games, to make it there. Wait, why is there an axeman in the middle of LA in the first place?
That's what this movie does, it treats the game like a bargain bin and takes the elements deemed "cool" and shoehorns them in without any explanation, or context. Nothing is explained; I know what they mean because I played and beat EVERY GAME in the series. Paul Anderson, who only directed this and the first installment, but who has written the screenplay for every single one makes these movies stand-alone. Meaning, each movie feels self-contained and doesn't carry on from the previous installment. Any connection between the movies is tenuous at best. Characters are just empty shells being used as nothing but props in the action scenes. Alice is the only consistent character, and she's as lifeless as the zombies shes killing. She herself is a killing machine; she only gets more powerful with every movie (even though she became 'human' early in the movie). And any gamer would agree it's no fun playing a game that provides no challenge, likewise, its no fun watching a movie in which the hero/heroine go unchallenged. The Resident Evil games pioneered the survival-horror genre. In the older games, the ammo was scarce, the healing items where few and far between, and the enemies were powerful. It put you in a constant state of danger and unease. Hell, in order to conserve your ammo you couldn't kill everything you saw, sometimes you just had to run... That is unless you cheat. And that's what Alice is, a cheat. Instead of a main character that's fragile, and can be overwhelmed at any time we're given one that does the overwhelming. That would be okay if this movie wasn't called RESIDENT EVIL. If you take away everything that's "Resident Evil" about these movies, aside from a few terms, nothing will have changed. And that's when you know something is wrong.