Alice returns for a fourth film in the series

Rating: 6/10 (1 October 2016)

This, the fourth instalment in the ongoing 'Resident Evil' franchise, opens in Tokyo as Alice launches an attack on an Umbrella Corporation facility to be more accurate several Alices. With superhuman skill they illuminate the facility's guards but its director, Albert Wesker, escapes in a plane. As he takes off he detonates the facility's self-destruct mechanism entirely destroying it. The Original Alice manages to survive as she got aboard Wesker's plane; she confronts him but he injects her with something that neutralises the T-Virus in her, removing her superhuman abilities. The plane crashes shortly afterwards.
Alice then makes her way to Alaska where she hopes to find the village of 'Arcadia'; a last outpost of humanity. What she finds is an apparently deserted settlement. It soon becomes clear that one person is still there; Claire Redfield although she has lost all memories due to a strange device on her chest. Once the device is removed the two fly south along the coast. When they get to Los Angeles they find a small group of survivors living in an abandoned prison. They think she has been sent from Arcadia to rescue them it turns out that Arcadia wasn't a village at all but a ship that is now anchored off LA. It won't be easy to get to it though; the prison is surrounded by hordes of zombies and they are starting to breach its defences. Even when those who survive get to the ship their troubles are far from over and Alice must confront an old foe.
After the enjoyable third part this was a bit of a disappointment; the story contains few surprises I doubt many people will be surprised by the reveal regarding what has been going on aboard the Arcadia and who is behind it. There is lots of action, some of it pretty good, unfortunately some of it was also fairly obvious CGI. This might have looked good when watched in 3D at the cinema but wasn't too impressive on DVD. Milla Jovovich does a decent enough job as Alice and the rest of the 'good guys' are okay if a little cliché. Shawn Roberts had clearly been told to act as if he was Agent Smith from 'The Matrix' as much of his action and even gestures are clearly ripped off from that film. Overall I'd only recommend this if you are a fan of the series; if you equate zombies with horror and hope to be scared you'll probably be disappointed but if you want an hour and a half of fairly mindless action you could do worse.
The ending is clearly a set-up for the fifth film in the franchise; let's just hope it is a bit better than this one.