Director: Paul W S Anderson
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Wentworth Miller, Kim Coates
Certificate: 15
Running time: 97 minutes
Cinema release date: 10 September 2010
The previous Resident Evil films have been an embarrassment to a wonderful videogame series yet have still managed to capture some shard of the Resident Evil spirit. With the release of Resident Evil: Afterlife – the fourth instalment in a withered series – I didn’t expect much, the only draw indicating a glimmer of promise was the acquisition of Wentworth Miller of Prison Break fame.
Unfortunately Resident Evil: Afterlife was more abysmal than I had initially anticipated. After reaching the halfway point Alice (Jovovich) had done little more than fly around in a small hovercraft searching for survivors who hadn’t suffered at the hands of the deadly zombie inducing T-virus. Her flying scenes were broken up with unconvincing video diary entries documenting the occasion. It’s remarkable that Alice has had everything thrown at her in this and other Resident Evil films yet always manages to have time to apply her makeup and look her very best – whilst this fits in with the video game spirit it is not compatible with the zombie film ethos where women and men are dripping with blood, sweat and an assortment of other fluids.
Admittedly Resident Evil is much more an action film than it is a horror, but unfortunately it fails in this department too. Even the 3D effects cannot save Resident Evil’s spiral into obscurity – to realistically detract from the poor film, the effects would have to rival Avatar. Add to the lack of convincing storyline, originality and plausibility, a bunch of actors, who for the most part, cannot act and you quickly start to understand what Resident Evil: Afterlife is offering.
Quite simply put: do not waste your time with Resident Evil: Afterlife under any circumstances. The Resident Evil film series should have died with the first. Serious zombie fans should look to the master of the zombie genre George A Romero or the more overlooked Lucio Fulci for flesh eating fulfilment.
MICHAEL WILSON
