Proof that some ideas should have quit while they were ahead, writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson has proven once again that more is in fact, not more. The fourth installment of the tired Resident Evil Franchise lives up completely to its name – Afterlife, in this case, refers to the hell in which this film places its unsuspecting audience.
Premise: Alice is still trying to destroy the evil Umbrella Corporation, zombies are still everywhere, and most of the time twists are added in for no apparent reason and with little to no explanation. Result: Like a table tennis match gone horribly wrong, audience’s emotions lob back and forth between boredom and exasperation with no end in sight.
The first segment of this film connects the audience to the final moments of the third film, Resident Evil: Extinction, where Alice (Milla Jovovich) has discovered the ability to clone herself and will use this advantage in her ultimate revenge against Umbrella. However, three years had passed since the last film, and the quick, confusing action sequences that explode on screen are complete disappointments, squandering whatever exhilaration came with the last film’s finale. Here, with no build up, the attack on the Umbrella’s Headquarters in Tokyo are completely isolated and may have been better added to the end of its predecessor. Things are happening on screen that feel more like something to get through than be thrilled by.
The climax of these misspent scenes is sadly absurd, with villain Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) suddenly injecting Alice with a substance that removes her infection and therefore her powers. This moment is painful as this never-before-mentioned twist blind-sides the audience, forcing excruciating eye rolls at a formulaic event that only serves to foreshadow how much Anderson will disrespect his audience as the film progresses.
Alice escapes and finds herself a plane and flies to Arcadia, Alaska, in search of a new world free of the infection – a place her friends supposedly went to. Of course, the only thing she finds is Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) who remembers nothing, including her own identity, after having been entranced by a spider-like device on her chest. Alice then captures Claire and takes her away on a girl-pal journey down the Western seaboard, searching for other survivors. Naturally, she finds survivors at the top of a penitentiary conveniently larger than any building on Earth and also dead heart of a major zombie-ridden metropolis ( the only thing surprising at this convenient cliché was that the zombies have not yet learned to fly.)
Inevitable bad-movie montage: Alice lands the plane on the roof of the massive penitentiary, meets motley crew of stranded non-zombies who tell her Arcadia is a ship not a town, meet also Claire’s brother Chris Redfield (Wentworth Miller), impatient zombies tunnel through sewers to get into the prison, giant monster zombie breaks down fence and endless streams of zombies invade, things blow up, people die, Alice shoots quarters out of a shotgun (the only vaguely fresh and interesting part of the film’s first half), survivors escape and find the ship. Sadly, I may have made the film sound better in montage.
The boarding of the Arcadia brings our film’s plot-template back on track: like a horror-film version of a color-by-numbers, the ship is, of course, run not only by Umbrella but by Wesker himself who, naturally, did not die in the plane crash at the film’s onset – What possibly would they do if he had?? Wesker is, of course, also infected by the virus, can teleport, and has decided that the only way to control the virus is to eat Alice to get her “stronger” DNA. To ensure the audience’s submission to this last absurdity, Alice even mentions this was a “good idea.” Sigh. Enter The Redfield siblings who fight Wesker while Alice fights infected Dobermans and we have completed numbers 1-8 of the Resident Evil Color-by-Number.
Of course, for a fine finale and bow to an inevitable sequel, Wesker’s destruction is mooted by hundreds of Umbrella air ships ready to attack the Arcadia filled with soldiers and controlled by a woman who herself is controlled by those spider machines. None of this is explained, of course. We don’t need any explanation nor by that point do we much care. The acting, plot, dialogue and anything else we typically value in film are just necessary evils to deliver the true purpose of the film: blood splatters and explosions. Fortunately, these are still done extremely well.
Overall, this film is a clear miss for fans or frankly anyone interested in anything more than a series of tired fight scenes; even the zombies in this film appear more like wall paper than integral to the plot. While there are a few frightful moments, this fear is more akin to realizing that your favorite jeans have been shrunk in the wash; while potential wardrobe malfunctions naturally strike terror in the hearts of all mankind, it is not exactly what the audience had in mind.
Rating: 3 – Mad Dog 20/20, Government Cheese, and a waste basket for afterwards
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