Darkmatters Review: Resident Evil Afterlife

Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D (15)

Dir. Paul W.S. Anderson

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

Paul W.S. Anderson is a cinematic legend, he makes films that critics generally hate but lots people go and see – from his joyriding debut ‘Shopping’ through the freaky space horror ‘Event Horizon’ and on to the ‘Resident Evil’ franchise, you can sense that he’s a guy who just likes to let rip with crowd pleasing pulp.

Resident Evil: Afterlife is the 4th film in the series ‘based on a computer game’ which tracks the adventures of Project Alice (Milla Jovovich – who is Anderson’s wife). Alice is a genetically enhanced heroine fighting the sinister Umbrella Corporation who have turned most of the world’s population into zombies thanks to the unscheduled escape of their bioweapon T-Virus. That’s about all you need to know in terms of plot as all four of the Resident Evil films have basically been very similar – slick improbable action as Alice shoots, chops and mashes hundreds of disposable zombie enemies, backed up by Umbrella Corp mercenaries and some freaky money shot ‘boss battles.’

Here we find Alice using an army of clones of herself to attack an Umbrella headquarters in a sequence that might the makers of The Matrix checking their copyright contracts. It looks amazing (especially in 3D) but we’ve seen this done before and better…

From then on Afterlife is a slog of reuniting the surviving cast from 2007’s Resident Evil: Extinction, running from and killing zombie, plus the obligatory boss battle against an giant axe wielding monstrosity who pops up with no back story (except that he was in RE4 and 5 games) simply to have an impressive but ultimately futile fight.

If you’re a fan of the Resident Evil games and films then Afterlife will push the right buttons, and send you home rejoicing in the fact that it is merely an ‘episode’ which has no conclusion – merely setting up the next film. Can take a wild guess if Alice can defeat Albert Wexler (Shawn Roberts), the evil Chairman of the Umbrella Corporation? I saw this with my Resident Evil virgin pal Matt Landsman who was left scratching his head at the plot – especially the supposed ‘bombshell’ ending credit scene.

"Miss Jovovich - nice to see you..."

All of the Resident Evil films have scored on average between 30 and 40% with critics so far and Afterlife is so very much a continuation of ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t bother changing it - just with added 3D’. But that’s unlikely to bother survival horror fans the world over who are you can almost hear quoting The Matrix’s Agent Smith by chorusing “Welcome back Mr Anderson, we’ve missed you”…

UNSEEN DELETED SCENE:

Alice comes out with her confused sexual feelings for Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine and Crystal (mirroring the feelings of the male audience members!) see below...

Darkmatters rating: öööööö (6 3D shootouts out of 10)

Darkmatters quick reference guide: Action 7 / Style 6 / Babes 8 / Comedy 5 / Horror 7 / Spiritual Enlightenment 3

Resident Evil Afterlife Babe-Off:

"Jill Valentine"

"Claire Redfield goes for the wet look with Milla"

"Crystal (Kacey Barnfield) ops for the black undies - zombies hate black undies!"