Reviewed by Joshua Lew
There are some movies that just leave you speechless. You walk out of the darkened theater into the fresh air of night, strolling hand in hand with your loved ones, or side by side with friends. Each of you silently marveling at the wonder you had just witnessed as questions swim in your head, “what was that really about? There was just so much beauty to that movie. What did I just witness- a moment in time that will never be forgotten.” There are just some movies that leave you speechless after viewing them, knowing that you had just witnessed something truly special, life-changing movies that make you question the possibilities, the meaning of life. Then there are movies that leave you speechless for other reasons as you stumble out of the movie theater in a daze, rubbing your eyes, but still asking the same questions, now with much more fervor, more frantically, more confused, “what the hell did I just watch? What the hell was that movie about? How the hell did that movie get funding? What is the meaning to life if stuff like that exists?” Resident Evil: Afterlife falls into the latter category of such thought-provoking cinema.
This 2010 sci-fi action horror movie is the fourth in the Resident Evil movie franchise, following 2007’s Resident Evil: Extinction, which are adapted from the video game franchise of the same name, and is once again written and directed by Mr. Widescreen himself, Paul W.S Anderson (of Event Horizon, Mortal Kombat and Death Race fame). Following the events of Extinction, Milla Jovovich reprises her role as Alice now searching for more ways to bring down the Umbrella Corporation, who’s testing of the T-Virus has plummeted the world into zombie infected chaos. Sounds like the rest of the Resident Evil movies? It is. Along the way, Alice uncovers a deeper conspiracy, as the Umbrella Corporation has taken upon itself to capture the few remaining humans for testing. Can Alice finally bring down the Umbrella Corporation, saving humanity, or will there be another sequel to this film franchise that just won’t die? There’s Afterlife here for us all, and we’re all damned regardless of the outcome. Ali Larter, Wentworth Miller, and Boris Kodjoe co-star in this 3D… extravaganza?
I had a hard time describing the plot of this movie to my friends who hadn’t seen it because frankly the plot might as well be the same as Resident Evil 1-3. There’s really nothing new here and yet somehow there’s even less. The movie starts off clichéd but interestingly enough, with camera’s slowly revealing a Japanese girl standing in the pouring rain. Everything is in slo-mo, as people walk around her wondering why she doesn’t have an umbrella. There’s a look in her eyes which further reiterate that things aren’t going to go well, and then the film speeds up to regular speed as she attacks a businessman, causing the outbreak of zombie infestation to go global. Then for the next 10 minutes there’s a lot of Mac-inspired green screened mayhem that looks like they were mostly unfinished, as multiple copies of Alice run around an underground Umbrella base. Things explode, bad 3D effects are had, the use of “bullet-time” continually rears its ugly head as the many Alice’s dance around and then yeah, more explosions, more… something. Then middle mark hits as the story moves on trying to explain its plot, there are some more poorly structured fight sequences, a rushed ending, and then credits. It was just all so mindless that even after its 1-hour 40-min run time, I felt like I had only watched a 30 minute trailer for an upcoming movie called, Resident Evil: Afterlife.
I know its faint mockery to say that this one’s probably the worst of the lackluster Resident Evil film franchise, but it probably is. I mean you only go to see this kind of movie to watch Milla Jovovoich kick butt, and while she does indeed do that, you’re better watching her in The Fifth Element for the 20th time then watching this one. One of the major problems with this film is its lack of suspense, its lack of story. The zombie story in both literature and film is successful because it showcases two things. One is that the zombie story is a great vehicle for amazing character studies. The field is ripe for such a study, much like the post-apocalyptic sub-genre. A writer, a director can put on display all the great character flaws- the black and white and grey of the human conscience-what it means to be a hero and a villain. Zombie films can be a great examination of the human condition which is why the original Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later were so successful. They showed humanity being human, even at its worst. The other type of successful zombie story is the outright gore-fest, as zombies tear into the flesh of the survivors, flooding the landscape like the plague, a modern day hell on Earth. Great gore and violence can sometimes make up for a poor story. Some zombie movies accomplish both of the criteria I’ve described- Resident Evil: Afterlife accomplishes neither of them.
The most frustrating thing about the movie is that since humanity has all been but wiped out, there are only a handful of survivors Alice can fight alongside with throughout the movie, maybe six of them. And since half of the six are either Alice or characters that can’t be killed because they’re the main characters in the video games, then really only three people could possibly get killed by a zombie. And in a genre where the higher the body count, the more enjoyment of the story, this movie just failed.
However, the most glaring fault of the movie, beyond the cheesy effects, beyond the fact that Paul W.S Anderson must have watched the Matrix trilogy hundreds of times since the villain of this movie, Albert Wesker acts and talks like Neo (he even dresses like Neo shades and all, oh and dodges bullets by doing the “bullet-time” effect), even beyond the lack of violence and poor acting, was the fact that you had to shell out money to see this trite in 3D. I checked if it was playing in 2D and beyond a handful of theaters nowhere near me in NYC (out of the hundreds), every theater only showed this movie in 3D. What’s so frustrating is the fact that, one, I didn’t want to see this movie in 3D, and two, the 3D effects were so ungodly bad reaching near poetry, near transcendence. I’m not kidding when I say the best 3D effects of the movie were its title sequence, when the words Resident Evil:Afterlife, flew across the screen like letters from the sky. That’s the best part of the movie. It’s like the filmmakers thought, “hey if you’re going to see garbage, might as well see it in 3D.” Even more insane is the fact that the movie was shot in 3D, rather than traditionally upconverted from 2D to 3D (like many 3D films), so there’s really no excuse.
So in the end, I go back to the beginning, what was this movie really about? Is it worth watching? The best of art gets us to talk about it, question its impact on the viewer/reader. So if you go by those standards then yes, Resident Evil: Afterlife should be watched only because you’ll keep asking the question, “why” over and over. But if you aren’t a chump, a sucker like me, then stay away, unless you to want to find yourself questioning, “what’s the point of it all?”
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