Evidently Feeble... But I still loved it.

Rating: 7/10 (25 October 2010)

The Resident Evil series is about Alice, a survivor in a world infested by zombies, created by the evil Umbrella Corporation who is trying to experiment with weapons of war. In the first three movies, she was hunted down by the corporation, experimented on, given superpowers, and cloned several times until she becomes an all-powerful nature-controlling rapid-healing super-freak Rick James could have been proud of.
Resident Evil: Afterlife starts with the Alice clones storming an Umbrella facility in Japan. In a brief, but spectacular action sequence, the clones manage to destroy the facility. By the end of this sequence, the clones are all killed and Alice's superpowers are taken away, making her 'human again'. Naturally, this is immediately followed by a plane crash.
Now there are established rules on how a Hollywood action movie can show a plane crash where the central characters are directly involved. This is where the hero heroically tries to rescue the villain despite their oh-so-many differences out of the goodness of his heart, and the maniacal villain succumbs to the crash with a look of hopeless despair whereas the hero jumps out with some nicks and cuts on his right arm and left cheek.
The rules are rigid. The hero may be replaced by a heroine and the villain may sport a maniacal sneer instead of a look of hopeless despair, but with this the flexibility ends. This movie, however, proves to be a maverick here. As a plot device, it served the same purpose as an eraser After the crash, the newly humanized Alice shows up walking in the desert armed with nothing but a sneer, two silver revolvers, and a bagful of makeup.
During her travels she stumbles upon Claire Redfield, last seen flying off in a helicopter to parts unknown in the last installment. Claire is now suffering from temporary amnesia, and running around wild, with dirt encrusting significant portions of her face, clothes and hair. She attacks Alice for a brief minute before she gets knocked down cold. In the next scene, she is shown tied up as a prisoner in the plane's backseat. What got ME interested, however, were the events between these scenes. Because the Claire who was tied in the backseat had gotten a complete makeover. She had her hair done, face washed, clothes cleaned, and had apparently gone through an entire beauty treatment package. Apparently, Alice is a stickler for appearance. After she punched Claire's lights out, she washed her and her clothes, did her hair, and even applied lipstick. So the good news is that even though we can expect the future to be a grim host for undead zombies, prisoners are probably going to be treated quite well. Maybe the Geneva Convention gets stricter.
But while she looks gorgeous and fulfills the horror movie hot girls quota, Claire is still plagued by her memory loss throughout the movie. The only thing she seems to remember from the previous movies is that during slow motion shots, she needs to heave her chest up and down in as exaggerated a fashion as possible, without looking downright asthmatic.
The movie then proceeds to invent excuses for other action sequences a rooftop plane crash, a survivor's fortress, an invincible ax-wielding monster, a brief underwater chase, and an impromptu bungee jump, all enhanced by the VFX team. The zombies themselves were well trained, clearly well versed with the Hollywood zombie rules They walk with their arms outstretched, they never nip at each other, move as slowly as possible while hovering around the background, trying to peck at new victims, but move VERY fast if a chase seen is in the horizon. They never nip at each other, and for the heroine, they either graciously move aside for her to pass by running, or place their faces directly in front of her flying bullets.
Pretty soon, Alice and her gang of survivors get to a ship called Arcadia supposedly a sanctuary for renegade survivors, but soon uncovered to be a front for the Umbrella corporation who were just abducting and experimenting on people Alice walks in to Umbrella's top secret floating facility and stares at the pristine, well maintained all-white laboratory-like space in the ship, markedly different from its gruff exterior, and moves on to see the villain smiling, seated, and waiting for her entry. Once again, what got ME interested, were the events before this scene. Apparently, the super-villain's concern for personal appearance was no less rigid than Alice's own. To be at the perfect seated location as Alice walks in, he must have practiced his poise and adjusted the lighting to get the perfect effect. It wasn't like he was seated behind a desk making notes/ drawing diabolical schematics for Acme products. He was seated waiting. That's dedication. Also, consider the pristine condition of the facility, and the fact that the impeccable white walls and floors hadn't so much as gathered dust. Add to it the fact that Albert was the lone mobile person in the craft. It tickles me pink to think that before Alice comes in for the climactic showdown, the megalomaniac super-villain must probably have spent his time dusting and scrubbing the floors.
I like to think that he still had his apron on and brooms in hand as he saw Alice board the ship on some video monitor. Presumably, he then hurriedly hid the cleaning tools, changed to his super-villain clothes, and staged his sitting position in the nick of time.
So with her humorlessly timed entrance, Alice engages the villain in hand to hand to bullet to dog combat. She apparently kills Albert in the end, but I wouldn't be surprised if he pops in for the next installment. All in all, I will put in a solid 4 zombie thumbs up for the movie, as long as you leave your brain behind. Not in an undead kind of way, though.