Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) Review

https://youtu.be/QvODEWW_P6M?is=p4Fta2rK7heBc0Y_

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Sometimes, going back to the basics can bring a bit of an advantage.


PLOT


2010’s Resident Evil: Afterlife takes place over a year after the events of Extinction. Former Umbrella Corporation turned whistleblower Alice has assembled her clone from Nevada to reach Tokyo and confront chairman Albert Wesker. As the clones become a distraction upon entry, she sneaks onto a plane to get the jump on him, but he anticipated her and injects her with the anti virus that takes away her psionic powers. He does try to finish her off, but they crash into a mountain that Alice is seemingly the only one to survive. Within six months, she reaches Alaska hoping to reunite with Claire Redfield, only to find her suffering from amnesia after being planted a metal scarab onto her chest. Although she doesn’t remember her, she trusts her in going to Los Angeles with her hoping to find the safe haven Arcadia that she heard on a radio broadcast. Upon landing do they meet another group of survivors that reveal Arcadia is a cargo tanker in the coast that hasn’t moved for some time, ignoring past rescue flares. The group includes: former athlete Luther West, former movie producer Bennett Sinclair, mechanic Angel Ortiz (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), former intern Kim Yong (Norman Yeung), Crystal Waters (Kacey Barnfield), Wendell (Fulvio Cecere) and Chris the only inmate that knows how to escape LA should they intend to escape. The latter would also be surprised to see Claire as he recognizes her to be his sister. Although he doesn’t remember him either, she takes Alice’s advice to trust him too. When Alice later tries to shower, she’d catch Wendell trying to peep and he would quickly die at the hands of infected emerging from the sewers. With Chris’ help, they split up to reach an armored car while also getting weapons at the basement armory. Zombies would devour Crystal after retrieving enough firearms to fight their way out. But when Angel finds the car to not have an engine, Sinclair panics and shoots him, leaving everyone behind via Alice’s plane to head to Arcadia. An axe wielding zombie dubbed the ‘Axeman’ then kills Yong when entering one of the buildings, but Alice is able to shoot it down when filling coins into a sawed off shotgun. Before Alice is able to leave via another boat with Chris & Claire, Luther gets pulled away by another monster. Upon reaching the Arcadia that appears abandoned, Claire would start remembering that when she and her crew reached Alaska, they were quickly captured by Umbrella soldiers as a trap to become test subjects, thus being implanted with the scarabs before she got to escape. When looking further, the remaining trio is able to find the survivors in comatose. When Alice keeps on looking however, she finds Wesker waiting for her and Sinclair by his side. Wesker explains his exposure to the virus granted him his own abilities to survive the crash and now plans to kill her for full control of it; especially considering her blood was on a cellular level that helped her retain control. Alice gets assist of Chris & Claire to subdue him long enough to also trap him with Sinclair. When that happens, Wesker devours Sinclair before escaping and tries to escape with one of his aircrafts, but he parachutes away due to Alice planting a bomb in advance. Unaware that the enemy escaped, Alice vows to officially make Arcadia a safe haven, but the film ends in a cliffhanger with that plan being delayed as an Umbrella squadron arrives with a scarab wearing Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory).


THOUGHTS


Writer/Producer Paul WS Anderson officially returns to the director’s chair after other projects kept him occupied. Did this bring much needed improvements? Sadly no because it officially gets worse here. Since this came out in 2010, you know that was en era where 3D effects were so unnecessary that they become quite bland in the end result. It hurts for me to say that because they should be better than the first movie given how much a revolutionary James Cameron’s Avatar became in terms of VFX technology. I mean the fatigue you feel for many slow motion scenes if more exhausting than what you would feel from Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon and Sucker Punch combined. Throwing sunglasses in slow motion does nothing for me compared to throwing or shooting a gun in slow motion. Replacing this over set pieces was the worst red flag that everything was officially downhill because the most obvious aspect goes to the script being so condensed that you don’t even care about the story because the 90 minute runtime is so fatigue that you can’t stand how everything is so rushed and you can’t be able to connect with the newer characters, only seeing them as new bodies to a kill count with no true suspense from whatever was left the first time around. I don’t want to come off like I’m overrating Milla Jovovich since her arc as the badass Alice does show off the theme of how sanctuary is something you build instead of find, but it ultimately feels pointless when you sequel bait with another cliffhanger. It was cool for Ali Larter to come back as Claire as someone who tries to be resilient given his memory loss and because of this, she doesn’t really have enough time to develop any chemistry with Wentworth Miller as the tactical Chris. It is neither actor’s fault here, but I have to address it given neither got the proper chance to shine here. I even feel like him saying he knows how to get out is a forced reference to Fox’s Prison Break. Who I can give credit to oddly enough has to be Borris Kodjoe and Kim Coates. The former makes the most of it playing Luther as most humble while the latter portrays Sinclair as the biggest slimeball that gets a deserving comeuppance. I also feel like Shawn Roberts is giving his all when making Wesker the most arrogant and simultaneously calculating of villains, but you don’t feel enough of it in the small amount of screentime he has given the double fakeout. I do give the guy credit for brainwashing Jill because that does back why she hasn’t been since Apocalypse and that is only the beginning of his plan before everything in Retribution unfolds. Again, a lot of this movie doesn’t work out because there’s so much inconsistency story-wise. Like for example, Wesker sure has dumb henchmen to wait exactly 30 minutes to tell him the Alice clones have infiltrated the Tokyo headquarters. That’s asking to get shot man. And if you want to talk about as waste of time, it’d be Alice trying to soak in revenge when she should’ve not given Wesker a chance on the plane. She’s even lucky to hardly have a scratch on her compared to Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto of the Fast Saga when she scratches. Wesker took her powers, so she shouldn’t look cleaner than a Tesla. Also, where the hell did Claire clean herself up after Alice finds her? She was hobo-levels of dirty given this is an apocalyptic franchise, so it’s a surprise we don’t know if there was still a nearby bunker that had a shower or not to be at a plot armor level of clean. Alice is even wasting battery on her camera to record there weren’t any survivors upon reaching LA when she doesn’t even look harder until after. And who set up the torches in the prison? I really doubt anyone including Luther would waste time getting a ladder for that. Sinclair doesn’t even need to be wearing goggles when he’s not opening the door and Ortiz is. What’s really more unbelievable than the zombies taking their time to rush Alice to the door, it’s gonna be Chris being sure Alice was gonna use explosives to take the elevator to the bottom floor. I don’t even like how Alice continues walking through Arcadia without telling the Redfields where she’s going. She’s lucky they catch up in time to deal with Sinclair while she fights Wesker and two mutant dogs. Lastly, I really doubt Alice had time to put explosives on the plane when she was still fighting the mutant dogs. We didn’t see her stash them, so it’s hard to know if she did it before or after the fight. Ignoring these things would be hard to do for the sake of enjoyment if you ask me. To wrap up, Resident Evil: Afterlife is another weak entry to a hardly stable sci fi franchise due to its need to focus to look cool rather than have proper substance. If you’re a fan of the video games, just skip this and stick with the games to avoid disappointment.