Resident Evil: Afterlife

Resident Evil: Afterlife | Action | rated R (V,G) | starring Mila Jovovich, Ali Larter, Wentworth Miller | directed by Paul W. S. Anderson | 1:30 mins | the following is a review of the 3D version of the film
Four years after a disaster at the Umbrella Corporation unleashed the T Virus on the populace turning the world into zombies, biologically enhanced and cloned Alice (Mila Jovovich) mounts a full-scale attack on Umbrella’s stronghold bunkers. Seeking Arcadia, a rumored refuge free of infection and zombies, she runs into a group of survivors who have taken up refuge in a Los Angeles prison and the group must fight a surrounding sea zombies to get free.
I was fairly dissapointed with the first and 2nd Resident Evil movies, but the third film, Resident Evil: Extinction, won me over. It had a very different change in scenery and took the series’ story arc in outrageous directions, further developing Alice as one of the genre’s toughest heroines. Not just a wicked zombie killer, but a bio-engineered weapon capable of unspeakable feats of strength, speed and now telekinesis. Extinction ended with a fantastic cliffhanger and a shot in the arm new direction for the series. Resident Evil: Afterlife picks up directly on that note. Alice, now having amassed an army, sets her sights not on the zombie hoard that has taken over the world, but on the Umbrella organization who started it all and now hides in bunkers under the ground.
There was a time not so long ago when I would have shuttered at the thought of seeing another Paul W. S. Anderson movie. A man who took one video game franchise after another, in addition to the Alien vs. Predator movie, and ran them into the ground playing exclusively to the lowest common denominator. Anderson returns to the director’s chair for the first time since the original Resident Evil and has made his best movie yet here (sorry, Event Horizon fans). Afterlife is leaps and bounds better than anything else Anderson has touched. It’s like he’s not even the same guy. This is actually good work here. He can now craft an action scene and deliver thrills and excitement. Critics will probably scouff at the over-use of slow motion, but I for one prefer it – especially in contrast to the frenzied, messy action of a Tony Scott/Michael Bay smash-up. You really get to see the action in Afterlife, nothing is hidden in a blur and in the 3D version I saw it’s a slick, clear ride of axes and bullets flying right at you. It’s all on the screen. Plus, I got to love that 11 years after The Matrix Anderson has pulled bullet-time out of another filmmaker’s bag of tricks and made it fun again.
Despite a confined prison setting, there was no point in Afterlife where I wasn’t entertained. There are a few eye-rolling moments, such as Jovovich and Wentworth Miller holding their breath underwater for an ungodly amount of time. But for the most part, creatively staged action rules the day, none better than Alice going up against a zombie hoard on a rooftop in a sequence involving quarters, an elevator and a rope that should get the audience cheering.  
It says quite a bit that the movie manages to be entertaining despite a serious lack of zombies. Much of that is owed to an absolutely killer opening sequence. The pace is set early and it doesn’t let up from there. Afterlife is more focused on the Umbrella corporation with the zombie hoard now just part of the wallpaper for these characters. What’s interesting about this series is that the world ended a long time ago. Yet it persists. Alice looking for survivors. The movies changing locations, color schemes and getting bigger and more epic with each sequel. Delving ever more into a world that seems beyond rescue, but giving us a hero strong enough to go up against an otherwise hopeless situation. With sequels methodically coming out every couple of years and not every year, Resident Evil has quietly, suddenly become a series to be reckoned with. 4 movies in and it’s still fresh, if not more fresh then it’s ever been. Constantly re-inventing itself yet advancing a story that spans all 4 movies. It’s an impressive trail of work from something that started as a video game adaptation.
But one problem that has always plagued the series comes up again here. All of these movies are top-heaving and anti-climactic. All of the best stuff is in quick, throw-away set pieces, but with zombie dogs, evil corporate goons, and super-soldiers at it’s disposal it doesn’t escalate to a grand finale that fully makes use of it’s ingrediants. ”Resident Evil 5″ (the game) gets elements incorporated here too, like the introduction of Chris Redfield and a seriously frightening force known as the Axeman. But the movie, again, would rather focus on Umbrella then be a monster movie. The finale of Afterlife works, but it just works. Then having set up a perfectly satisfying happy ending, Anderson just can’t let it die, turning around a head-scratcher of a cliffhanger that promises something even bigger then what we’ve seen.
Afterlife is visually glossy, deliciously violent, staffed with characters that are better than the usual stock zombie fodder and contains more than a few bursts of creative action set pieces involving Jovovich dishing out a one-woman zombie mow-down. Thanks to Extinction and now Afterlife, Resident Evil is bucking every trend I’ve ever seen in horror movie sequels and actually getting better with each installment. This is the best of the series.