Resident Evil Afterlife...Save your Money!

Rating: 5/10 (12 September 2010)

Matinée Madness! Resident Evil Afterlife, okay so this movie had been hyped up for years ever since the success of RE: Extinction, which ended roughly with a cliffhanger, we all knew Alice was going to come back to wage war with the Umbrella Company, stating she was "Bringing a few of her friends". We all knew Wesker had to be the villain in the next movie, we even knew that Ali Larter was going to return as Claire Redfield...what we didn't know was that this MOVIE was going to be shot in 3D! Using the same fusion camera system that James Cameron used in AVATAR, everybody probably figured "Hey, this movie's going to be awesome, it's shot in 3D!" Well sorry to disappoint folks, BUT that's all this movie has going for it!!! Now I'm a big fan of RE, I played the 1,2, Code Veronica, 4th, and half of the 3rd game. I knew what to expect when I went in to see this movie, Zombie's getting their asses blown away by gorgeous babes (or Chris Redfield and Leon Kennedy). Knowing this and seeing the incredibly awesome trailer I went in hoping to witness the greatest RE Movie ever! Instead this was what I got: Milla Jovovich as NEO (or the ONE in case you didn't watch "The Matrix"), Blasting her way through hundreds of soldiers, undead zombies, and mutated dogs....just to go on a cruise ship?! Okay some of that sounded a bit harsh, but that's the plot in a nutshell. I'm serious, there's nothing much else in between except for some poor acting, laughable dialog, and useless freeze-frames(Done just for the 3D aspect of the film). Look, let me tell you something I was looking forward to seeing this movie, so much so, I even watched scenes from the RE5 video game on you-tube just to get in the feel of things, and you know what? When the movie was finished and I walked out those theater doors, I found myself cursing the NAME Paul W.S. Anderson!(The guy is one of my favorite directors of all time! This guy brought us Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil 1, Death Race, and Event Horizon, Come On Paul!) In this film he was just lazy. The only thing the director wanted to concentrate on was the action scenes and the whole 3D hype, and like the first three movies there were only some references made by the video games: The Zombies being one, Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine, Carlos Olivera, and even monsters such as The Licker, Nemisis, and The Tyrant have come into play, but the plots are just not the same. Instead we follow this Character Alice, who is NOT in the games whatsoever! So in this film we got Chris Redfield, Albert Wesker, and the monster everybody was looking forward to..."The Executioner!" (Big Applause!) to appear in this one. Chris Redfield portrayed by Wentworth Miller really had no purpose in this movie except to just to be in it so fans of the game can say "Hey It's Chris!...Bout Time!" I won't go into the acting Wentworth Miller put into his character, because there isn't any, but I can tell you this, The man can sure hold his breath forever. There is a scene in here, among countless others, where Chris and so and so have to go under water and hold their breath for about 5-10 minutes, and then they come out of the water guns blazing! I found this to be somewhat laughable, If I had to swim underwater and hold my breath for ten minutes, I would die no joke.
Also Shawn Roberts who portrayed Albert Wesker in this film had only 2 cameos in this film, TWO! The Beginning and the End, His character is so card-board thin you could practically cut him in half with a box cutter. So Albert Wesker the bad ass who always wears sunglasses, had this awesome fight scene with Claire, Chris, and Alice taking him on all at once, and it's the EXACT same fight scene they showed in RE5, exactly the same! Here they had an opportunity to do so much more with this fight scene and instead they (as in Paul W.S. Anderson) chose to copy it right out of the game? STUPID! Also Wesker's Demise was so F**King dumb I found myself saying "Seriously!?....that's it!?" Needless to say, I found myself saying that exact line when Chris and Claire reunited. I wished there were more scenes between the two characters because they are really close in the game (Brother and Sister duh!) but in here they didn't have much screen time together.
Now onto the 3D aspect of the film, as I stated above the only thing this movie had going for it was the 3D, and if you have to watch it, watch it specifically in 3D. I mean we got artillery shells flying at you, Axes heaved out of frame, shattered glass exploding everywhere, even the tentacles from the zombie's faces come out at you. This is what the director envisioned when he thought of the 4th RE movie. I mean most of these scenes are great, the battle between Claire, Alice, and The Executioner should ONLY be seen in 3D. Yeah sure there are some action sequences taken out of the Matrix, but hey it's in 3D right? The Matrix isn't even in 3D and yet I found myself enjoying every moment of on-screen violence, no matter how ripped off it maybe.
My Rating as it may be stands at a Very High Rental, or 5 stars (The 3D aspect making all 5 stars or this film watchable). My sympathy goes out to all the RE fans out there hoping and wishing this was a great film, we're all going to have to wait sadly for the next movie, OH and there is going to be another movie...(cliffhanger!) so let's all cross our fingers and hope they make this one BETTER.