Resident Evil Afterlife 3D Review
Review by Los Angeles Times
One thing “Resident Evil” honcho Paul W.S. Anderson has figured out about his franchise: Once the train leaves the station, it’s best not to make any stops. His new installment (fourth as writer-producer, second as director), “Resident Evil: Afterlife” is an express to Monstertown on tracks greased with zombie entrails.
For those not steeped in the gory legend risen from the popular video games, Milla Jovovich plays Alice, former operative and now arch-nemesis of the Umbrella Corporation. As the name implies, the company covers it all in the field of malevolence — even after it accidentally launches a plague that essentially wipes out humanity, it keeps plotting new wickedness that often involves experimenting on uninfected humans.
This fourth chapter of Alice in Zombieland, in 3-D, opens with our heroine, somehow granted super powers by the virus, and her army of great-looking clones taking down a company installation. After that delightful salutatory carnage, Alice searches for her friends from the previous movie, eventually holing up with survivors in a maximum-security prison in the middle of Los Angeles.
Review by iamrougue
Resident Evil: Aftermath is made for fans of the series. There is nothing groundbreaking or deep that it will open it up to people not already on board. In fact, the paper-thin storyline may even disappoint a few fans the franchise does have, as it has strayed so far from the game itself. You’ve got Alice (Milla Jovovich), Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) and a group of survivors that need to get past hordes of zombies to get to possible safety. That’s it really. And within the cast are the typical, a-hole who is an a-hole, a-hole who really is a good guy, and of course, a bunch of fodder. Now here is the deal, if you accept this and you know what you are getting into, you may just have a good time.
There is something to be said for the simplicity of these films. Usually you have an impressive action set piece or two and of course, you have Alice. Milla Jovovich still seems game to play this badass chick that can kick, stab and shoot an army of monsters without breaking a sweat. She looks unbelievably sexy doing it and she is a pretty strong actress in addition. Like Kate Beckinsale in Underworld or some of these other women with “girl power”, she exudes sexiness as she causes havoc for the bad guys. Of course, in the Resident Evil series, that would be the Umbrella Corporation. Would these movies work without her? The surprisingly consistent box office tells you that she is most likely a big reason people keep coming back.
Review by Film
I remember having a lot of unanswered questions at the end of Resident Evil: Extinction. What did I just watch? Why did I watch it? Is it too late to change to a career that will not require me to watch things like this? None of those questions are answered in part four of the franchise, Resident Evil: Afterlife, but at least you get to hear a bad guy say, “Tell security to flood the main entrance with nerve gas.”
It’s been a few years since the events of the last film (whatever those might have been; re-reading my review did little to jog my memory), and Alice (Milla Jovovich) is still seeking revenge against the Umbrella Corporation, whose dangerous experimentation with viral weaponry turned most of the Earth’s population into flesh-eating zombies. Alice acquired super powers at some point, but an injection early in this film makes her an ordinary human again. Then she walks away from a plane crash that otherwise left nothing but smoldering wreckage. You know, like ordinary humans do.
Having sent her fellow survivors to a supposed safe zone in Alaska, Alice the warrior now endeavors to catch up with them. She manages to find Claire (Ali Larter) but no one else, and Claire has amnesia. Somehow they both wind up in what used to be a prison, holed up with a small band of other survivors hiding from the zombie horde outside the prison gates.
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