'Resident Evil: Afterlife 3-D' has good 3-D, less everything else

Rating: 6/10 (1 April 2011)

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, the latest, and fourth of the Resident Evil series, now called Afterlife, Alice (Milla Jovovich) continues on her journey, now with her sidekick Claire (Ali Larter), in a world ravaged by a virus infection to find survivors in L.A. and lead them to safety. Meanwhile the evil Umbrella Corporation responsible for the virus is after her.
This 3rd sequel has now went on to the Avatar-esque RealD 3-D format, and in all honesty, it looked amazing. The images were crisp, the whites looked white, and the raindrops Oh my, the raindrops. If you had a choice between watching it in 3-D or 2-D, I'd suggest the 3-D version, because, well, the movie itself doesn't fair as well on its own, meaning, in terms of characterization, plot, or even action.
The film starts off strong, particularly the beginning credits, which presents a rainy Tokyo street scene where a girl is standing alone without an umbrella amongst a crowd. The scene is filled with colors, tension, and mystery. Had the film carried that same sense of horror throughout the film, I think this film could've been something quite special. The pacing slows down considerably as well. As it is, it is a fairly standard action film with Milla Jovovich doing her usual badass, too-tough-to-bother action heroine thing. She looks cool, no doubt—but it's nothing new and she's mostly going through the motions by now.
The visuals are what sells this film. The sets, both virtual and not, are of high quality (and budget, too, I suppose). The storming of the Umbrella corporation in the beginning is quite out there, but kind of neat, too. A fight between two women vs. one baddie with a giant ax is a nice scene where you see 3-D blood splatter onto the screen. Personally, I don't see how the film could be better in 2-D, particularly these action scenes. These scenes are highly unrealistic, are often in slow motion, and not terribly exciting aside from the 3-D. They're great visuals, but there's hardly any tension, drama, or fear. Milla Jovovich's Alice has become a James Bond-ian superwoman where no bullets or sharp edges can touch her. She twirls and jumps in mid-air, easily dodging bullets as if they were tennis balls on American Gladiators. Advertisement And, this is all in slo-mo. Now, this is where 3-D gets useful. You can appreciate the details, the textures, and the spatial awareness. I've read in an article recently that one of the tough aspects about filming fight scenes in a 3-D film is that you have to actually connect, or hit the other person because you can't use fake distance with camera tricks like you can with the regular film. I suppose that could be the reason for the use of slo-mo. Then again, one can always do the other way as in some Hong Kong Films, where they "undercrank," so people can fight slower with slower frame rate so it looks faster in normal speed. Either way, it works aesthetically well in 3-D. Motion blurs could look odd in 3-D, after all.
The plot involves a group of survivors stranded on a prison facility surrounded by flesh-eating zombies. It is up to Alice and Claire to help them get to safety to a ship offshore. The characters are fairly generic, with couple of fighter-type guys, a wimpy guy, a sleazy guy, and a pretty chick. Their backstory doesn't figure much into the plot, so it doesn't really matter what they do.
Milla Jovovich has played this type of role for so long that it's nothing surprising. She plays Alice with great physicality and delivers her lines as it is written. The dialogue is generic, lacking humor. Ali Larter plays Claire, who looks more like a feminine version of Alice. Shawn Roberts plays the evil head of the Umbrella Corporation, Albert Wesker. (Who pays for the Umbrella Corporation, by the way? And, do they still pay money?) Wesker resembles Ice Man from Top Gun, donning sunglasses, looking robotic--I suppose he symbolizes the cold, robotic nature of big corporations.
Overall, despite the simple plot and characters, Milla plays Alice as I suppose she is meant to played, with lots of action. I was still happy how good the 3-D looked and it could be a good reason to at least check it out in theaters. There's good potential and effective use of this medium, if coupled with a good script and characters we can care about.