Resident Evil: Afterlife: a tedious exercise in CGI wankery
Starring Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, and Wentworth Miller. Rated 18A. Opens Friday, September 10
Director Paul W.S. Anderson is a real hit ’n’ miss kinda guy. The first film I saw of his, 1997’s Event Horizon, blew me away; it was a nightmarish, spooky-as-hell sci-fi shocker. But then he went and ruined that positive impression with the ludicrous 2004 monstrosity AVP: Alien vs. Predator. Unfortunately for the both of us, Resident Evil: Afterlife sees Anderson returning to cinematic dreck with a stunningly tedious exercise in 3-D CGI wankery.
Watch the trailer for Resident Evil: Afterlife.
Poor Milla Jovovich returns for the fourth time—after 2002’s Resident Evil, 2004’s Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and 2007’s Resident Evil: Extinction—as the ass-kicking, supermodel-looking Alice, the sole survivor of virus experiments that went awry and left the world a zombie-infested wasteland. Because the films are all based on a first-person shooter video game, the well-armed Alice’s main goal in life is to jump around and blast the hell out of zombies—or slice and dice them with knives and swords. But in Afterlife she—with the help of a bunch of clones—spends way too much time blasting the hell out of heavily armed troops. Boooring!
The plot sucks. Tracking a radio beacon, Alice pilots a two-seater plane up to Alaska but only finds a babe named Claire (Ali Larter) up there, so she flies back down—right over Prince Rupert!—and crash-lands on the roof of an L.A. prison surrounded by the living dead. The prison is inhabited by the usual stereotypes, including the brooding hero (Prison Break’s Wentworth Miller) and the weaselly coward (Kim Coates), all of whom hope to escape onto the supertanker that’s anchored nearby and transmitting messages of safety. Endless slo-mo scenes of mind-numbing, Matrix-like violence ensue. You’ll be truly amazed by how pointless it all is.
As wretched a video-game spinoff as RE: A is, though, there is a bright side. At least it wasn’t directed by Uwe Boll.
Comments
8 Comments
Lewis
Sep 10, 2010 at 3:44pm
Whatever idiot wasted his time typing up such a ignorant review of a film which was suprisingly pretty good should hope that this is not his day job.
I do not even feel like I need to entirely explain why I feel you are an idiot.
All I need to say is you certainly did NOT watch the film.
"the well-armed Alice’s main goal in life is to jump around and blast the hell out of zombies—or slice and dice them with knives and swords. But in Afterlife she —with the help of a bunch of clones—spends way too much time blasting the hell out of heavily armed troops. Boooring!"
WHAT!? Alice's goal is to bring down umbrella corp for their experiments and what they did to her with cloning and such.
The clone thing is in the film for what? The first 5 minutes.
"The plot sucks. Tracking a radio beacon, Alice pilots a two-seater plane up to Alaska but only finds a babe named Crystal up there"
Just trying to make the film sound as bad as possible and for no reason at all is what I feel. The girl she finds in Alaska is Claire Redfield not Crystal.
Sadly for you there is probably going to be a sequel judging from Gill Valentines appearance during the credits.
Nice review jackass.
Steve Newton
Sep 10, 2010 at 4:33pm
you're right, Lewis, I got the name wrong, it should be Claire and not Crystal. Thanks for pointing that out; the correction has now been made. It's nice that you thought the movie was "surprisingly pretty good". I can't wait to thrash the sequel.
S Kainwrate
Sep 10, 2010 at 4:48pm
A completely biased review. Did you even watch the whole film?
Evan D
Sep 10, 2010 at 11:51pm
The movie is not about the plot, the number of wholes in it is insane (she survives a Full speed plane crash into a mountain while 100% human ie no super powers) also i found it hilarious the the guy from prison break was the guy with the plan to break out of the prison they might as well have named him scofield.
its about zombies being shot in the face and it does that well.
thewat
Sep 11, 2010 at 12:11am
not criticizing your review since i haven't seen the movie, but its based on a third person survival game by the way. not first person shooter. just thought u should know.
B-dogg
Sep 11, 2010 at 8:34am
I think the main thing here should be that none of the games were first-person shooters. They are survival horror games. The main difference being the camera is always behind the character or put in a weird angle up on the ceiling, not acting as the character's eyes. These camera angles are what make the games scary, and there are never giant action sequences like Alice flying down a building with a bunch of clones shooting the place up. In fact, Alice isn't even in any of the games. It's cool to see the ax man and the new look zombies from the 5th game, but the movies are not even close to what the games were like. Thats what makes it less fun for me.
Whitebird 17
Sep 11, 2010 at 9:04pm
I'm glad i dont let movie reviewers influence my decision to watch a movie. I usually dont agree with their opinions. I thought the movie was great. A little disapointed that its not like the games but i was still entertained. In fact I have enjoyed all the movies in the franchise so far. I still look at reviews because i enjoy watching a reviewer trash a movie and everyone else that has actually watched it disagree with him or her. Its almost like a person who reviews movies has to be like that because its not cool in reviewer land to actually like something that the commoners enjoy. I would pay to see it again.
RE 4 Ever
Sep 15, 2010 at 3:44pm
Criticize the movie all you want...plot sucks, who cares? Stereotype characters, ya, so? Mind-numbing Matrix-like violence, and what's the problem? Dude, this film rocked ass. Period. Resident Evil mayhem that was gloriously filmed in awesome 3D. Hugely original? No. True to the RE video games? Ha ha, who cares? Awesome visual spectacle with sleek action babes kicking some major ass? Yeah, baby.