Good from a normal movie viewer perspective.

Rating: 7/10 (11 September 2010)

Before I start, let me say that I am a fan of the Resident Evil games. I may not have played them all, but I've played quite a few. I'm not writing a review as someone who is so obsessed with the games, that they want them to be completely like the games, or they completely suck. I'm writing this as both someone who's played the game, but also as a movie watcher.
Firstly I'll comment on the 3D. The 3D was nice, but caused some of the cinematics to suffer in turn. To show off the 3D technology, a lot of scenes were put in slow motion, but some were not for this cause. Slow motion was just completely overused. It's an action movie. Half of the action in every scene shouldn't be slow motion. The time that takes up can EASILY be filled in with more choreographed fighting. Other than this, the 3D was tolerable.
As for the general directing of the movie, the scenes were all filmed at perfect angles and camera movements were right on the dot. Everything was positioned so you can see the action and the progression of the storyline from the best perspectives.
The acting on the most part was exceptional or better. Jovovich and Larter pulled off their characters well. I was pleased that Larter finally got more action than she did in Extinction where all she did was constantly shoot things. In my opinion, Miller didn't pull of Chris Redfield as good as expected. He sounded like he was constantly muttering, so at some points it was hard to understand him. Roberts as Albert Wesker shared in some of the disappointment I had with Chris. They weren't believable as they should have been.
The overall storyline was fairly weak. It never really had a concrete plot the entire way through. Other than the characters from the game, or characters from previous movies, all died pathetically. They were almost, if not all off-screen, and barely anything was shown. It's a ZOMBIE MOVIE. That's part of what people go to see! A lot of things happened that definitely should have been explained, although the explanation wouldn't add to the movie, just help people watching the movie understand what happened and what was currently happening. The ending of the movie came abruptly, and at least a half hour earlier than it really should have. There should have been much more continuing, so that the fifth movie (which will happen if Afterlife is successful enough in theatres) would have a much better kick-off place, without steering away from the main storyline so that it could finish the general storyline in Afterlife first.
*** Spoilers *** As a fan of the games, these are some things that annoyed me, or that I found related to the games.
All the zombies were Majini infected with the Plagas from Resident Evil 5, with no explanation or anything. WHY? I know they're trying to keep it relatively modern, but really? At least give some explanations! The T-Virus doesn't even evolve into the Las Plagas. / The entire movie's visual filter was darker, trying to give it more of the feel that RE5 has when playing through it on it's normal filter. / Chris Redfield's outfit was bad. It was much too baggy. It mentioned he was in the military, so why wouldn't they give him an outfit more like his BSAA one from RE5? / Costume for Claire Redfield was a lot better than extinction. Much more relative to her character in the games. Wesker's outfit was dead on with RE5. / The P30 device was introduced in the movie, but how they used it was ridiculous. They put it on Claire, K-Mart and basically like 40 million other people :/ AND In the movie it was really easy to get off. They should have made it at least a bit more of a challenge for the characters to remove. The devices actual intentions were never explained, and they randomly added memory loss as a side effect to it. In my opinion, it was a completely pointless addition to the movie. / Scene from RE5 was taken right from the game and placed in the movie, except replacing Sheva Alomar with Claire Redfield. / Jill Valentine makes an appearance at the end, with her original actress Guillory, if her outfit and appearance from RE5, with one of the P30 devices on her chest, ordering umbrella soldiers. This at least showed some amount of promise for the fifth movie if it ends up being made. Due to no explanation to her absence from the third movie, or how she came to be a commanding power in Umbrella, this'll take a bit out of the fifth installment to explain what happened.
Finally two last things I'll comment on. The first is how they gave Spencer Locke such a pathetic role in this movie. I loved her as K-Mart in Extinction, and by the end of the movie she was slowly starting to show promise in possibly becoming a fighter, but instead, she gets like 5 minutes of screen time, and does absolutely nothing. She should have been in the movie from the start when Claire attack Alice because of the P30 device, fighting alongside Claire, and then continuing from there. I really hope they give her a better role in the next movie.
The second thing is how even though they tried to put a lot of things based on Resident Evil 5, they should have introduced Sheva into the movie, instead of one of the stupid Hollywood people they introduced.
My advice to any fans of the game series watching the movie, don't judge it based on the games, seeing as it's clear that they are separate from them, so don't judge it in comparison to the games.
In summation, I'd give the movie a 7 out of 10.