Resident Evil: Afterlife

Rated: R

“In a world ravaged by a virus infection, turning its victims into the Undead, Alice continues on her journey to find survivors and lead them to safety. Her deadly battle with the Umbrella Corporation reaches new heights, but Alice gets some unexpected help from an old friend. A new lead that promises a safe haven from the Undead takes them to Los Angeles, but when they arrive the city is overrun by thousands of Undead – and Alice and her comrades are about to step into a deadly trap.” (via Screen Gems)

Maybe my expectations were too high. I love the first three, had heard only great things from my friends who had seen it, and the previews looked awesome. I expected to be blown away. So I was very surprised to be sitting in the theater actually thinking “I’m bored”.  Apparently “written for 3D” means “slow-mo bullets and copying The Matrix”. Even the bad guy was simply Agent Smith with more hair.

Don’t get me wrong, the effects were fantastic and there was a ton of action. But there wasn’t much else. There was so much slow motion that the movie would probably have been half as long if run in real time. And there is only so much bullets flying through the air like it’s water that I can take. There wasn’t much in the way of plot, although deeper (and more interesting) plot points were introduced—only to be forgotten and replaced with running around. You can tell where the script was going in the original draft, until someone realized they could film it in 3D. The build up from the end of the third film was completed and dismissed in the first ten minutes, and what could have been an awesome story built on that was lost. And for a zombie movie, there weren’t very many. We get a few new characters, but we hardly get to know them (other than they can shoot well). There will obviously be a fifth movie (watch after the credits), so I can only hope it will contain the plot that this one ignored.

Since the only good thing about the movie is the effects, see it in theaters. Or wait until the price of 3D TVs go down.

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Running Time: 97 minutes

Rating: 6/10 Stars