Michael Schofield, is that you?

Rating: 5/10 (14 April 2020)

"Resident Evil: Afterlife" is a 2010 action horror film written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson starring Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter. With the so far worst of the films behind me, I couldn't stop myself from still being excited about the following films despite my brain telling me that it's more than a terrible idea to be this hopeful. What else to expect now that the most amateurish and untalented writer-director of all time has also returned to being fully in charge of helming the project? That's right, another disaster. Still considering himself one of the best in the business, he once again created another messy screenplay and enacted it himself. Once again, I'm asking what meaning most of the scenes had. Already the beginning is absolutely ludicrous as it's nothing but a mindless shootout with obvious and terrible CGI that was neither innovative nor somehow entertaining to watch. The film features 3D, you say? Oh, that's probably Anderson's inducement of including mindless scenes like this. Dozens of unrealistic clones shooting up the Umbrella facility in such a ridiculous and useless manner? We totally get that you love to display your real life wife, Paul, but please do something with more purpose next time. Seriously. After this, it's obvious that the film ultimately decided to go full action movie and leaves its horror roots behind completly. With every entry to the series we stray further from the games and yet the film still pretends to be anything related to the original game series. What do you expect from a dilletante like Anderson? A clear and well conceived plot structure and story that knows how to respect its source material properly? Keep on dreaming. Yet, compared to "Extinction" it's still a minimal improvement in terms of continuity, as it is at least plausibly connected to the previous installment (in an Anderson type of standard, at least). It leads Mrs. Badass herself on the quest of finding Arcadia on the way to Alaska, just to have the whole story take place in Los Angeles anyway. I'm not gonna question that anymore. With the main focus lying on the action elements, the atmosphere disappeared completly. It has been sort of mildly scary in the past, but this is the new direction. Only guns and violence. Exactly what the fans of the games want. Isn't it wonderful how Anderson knows to treat the fans with so much respect? Not. Well, to his defense, at that time the games weren't any different than this, so it was bearable and even sorta mildly surprising that it features a few minimal aspects of the fifth game (majini, the scarab devices, the Axeman) even when they are used without giving a meaning to them. Why question things logically in an Anderson film? It has no use. Anyways, the film at least has a minimal entertainment factor to it. What seems like a blatant rip-off of "The Walking Dead" more and more becomes brainless fun with dozens of plot holes and character decisions, made by characters I couldn't care less about. Then there's the introduction of one of the finest characters of the original game, the actual protagonist: Chris "The Boulder" Redfield. Well, at least he tries to be. To be honest, his introduction was not only extremely unsatisfying, he's totally underused as well. Furthermore, casting Wentworth Miller as the charismatic leader was a terrible choice. First of all, he doesn't look like Redfield in the slightest, secondly, he's also completely misinterpreted. The guy who played Carlos in the previous films looked and acted more like Chris than Miller does. On top of that, it occurred to me that he isn't even much of a great actor either. Honestly, I've seen him in a handful of different roles and he always plays this seemingly emotionless yet cool guy with one facial expression who seems to know more than he admits. He's charismatic, indeed, but he didn't do my boy Chris justice. Seriously, it doesn't arise out of nowhere that I had the strange feeling that he literally just played Michael Schofield rather than the original game's protagonist. From there on, the film offers one overstated action sequences after another, until the final confrontation. If there's one thing this film totally nailed, it's the characterization of iconic arch enemy Albert Wesker. Despite him being way too weak and not that much of a threat, it was a surprise to actually see a character who looks and acts exactly like his game counterpart. In the end though, when the film finally concluded (after a decent fight between the Redfields and Wesker) and the credits rolled I again had the feeling that it was only the beginning of the film, as it, to this point, didn't offer anything interesting, just repetitive action sequence after action sequence combined with cheesy dialogue. It's a strangely admirable ability to stretch so little substance to an one and a half hour film and it takes a lot of audacity to call it a full length feature and decent video game adaptation. Cheap fun factor put aside, that's nothing but outrageous. Yet, Anderson manages to always get away with it. Sigh. All in all, this installment is still dreadful as cinematic achievement or as a decent adaptation, but at least brought back the cheap entertainment factor that was nonexistent in the previous movie. It's all style and no substance and keeps on disgracing its source material in the favour of absolutely brainless action and nonsensical violence. I've finally given up on getting a proper adaptation. Also, someone please keep Paul W.S. Anderson from making any more movies. Please.