***WARNING***
THE FOLLOWING REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS AND THEREFORE MAYBE UNSUITABLE FOR SOME FUCKS. IT ALSO CONTAINS A HIDDEN MESSAGE WHICH CAN BE HEARD IF THE REVIEW IS RECORDED AND THEN PLAYED BACKWARDS.
***YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED***
With the promise of absolutely nothing even remotely hopeful arriving in cinemas over the coming weeks I decided to watch a film from last year that I missed. Not wanting to tax my brain too much but wanting to be entertained I decided to take in the latest installment from a franchise which despite its overly apparent shitness I've actually found myself begrudgingly enjoying thus far. And so we enter the world of 'Resident Evil: Afterlife'.
'Resident Evil' was a film made back in 2002 based upon an already popular video game franchise which to date I have no interest in playing, yet somehow am following the plot of via friends or video game reviews. It told the story of Alice who for no apparent reason other than to display Milla Yovovovovovovviches insanely thumb sized nipples awoke naked in a shower and surrounded by undead. From this point on Alice meets many popular characters from the games and gets awarded for completing each film with a new super power provided to her for some unexplained and rather nonsensical reason by the evil Umbrella corporation, the very corporation she has spent the entire franchise trying to destroy.
It would seem however that by the time Alice was ready to start tackling film four in order to upgrade her (and probably her third film clones) beyond superhuman form to all new withering heights the Umbrella Corp wised up and said...
and so the picture is set with Alice being normal again and setting off for (Hel)L-A in order to bash some zombie brains into the middle of some other zombie brains.
'Afterlife', much like the previous installments is much more of an action film than a horror film. Many fans of the games have criticized the movies for this, but I however being the much higher intellect think that the genre placement in the films is pitch perfect. Zombie horror has been done, and its been done well, if the filmmakers were to approach from that angle no doubt you would be left with a slow paced, boring shmutz which no-one would be interested in watching. With the action genre however you can cater for a larger audience, rack up the pace and throw in a jumpy moment or two to please the attention deficit types.
The action in the fourth installment is big and splashy but has a faint stale smell about it. Constant slow motion/ regular motion seems to only exist in order for the film to show off its bits and wave them in your face like some kind of possessed male stripper with a helicopter fetish. This is in no doubt because the film was released in 3D, which I'm sure looked very impressive on the big screen but sat at home with my sizable home theater setup it just started to annoy me. It also ensures that the action takes a while to happen, there is one sequence where a big guy with a massive compensating hammer attacks Alice and Claire in a bathroom, when this begins you have enough time to walk away, make a cup of tea, cook a roast dinner, serve it to your entire family, eat it, play monopoly, then risk, then pictionary, write your memoirs, learn all the words to the song 'The Whirlwind' by the Transatlantics, move to poland and still get back to the film in time to see the big beastie meet his timely demise, only having missed a slide, a kick, a jump and two shotgun shots.
The actors for the most part are window dressing as is to be expected in a brain dead action film but special mention must go out to Shawn Roberts for the least interesting, most wooden performance as Albert Wesker, the worlds least intimidating super-villain. His final scene is a treat to bestow though what with the slow motion action, wooden acting, trench coat, glasses, dodging bullets, red pill, blue pill etcetera.
Its become apparent now that thematically, 'Resident Evil' has run its course. Even the games gave up on the Zombie Apocalypse by the time they got to game four. 'Afterlife' is without a doubt in my mind the weaker of the series thus far, like a mixture of the previous three but somehow watered down like a muddy cup of...mud. There will be no doubt a 'Resident Evil five', the very open ended ending of 'Afterlife' will lend itself well to an all action opening sequence for the inevitable sequel. I guess at the end of the day 'Resident Evil: Afterlife' is not without its merits, it killed time, it made me laugh once and made me want to re-watch the 'Matrix' for the umpteenth time. It never was going to be a life changing affaire, simply a half decent way to kill two hours, which it does, kinda, i guess, maybe, for some, brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrb.
Resident Evil: Afterlife gets...
1 out of 5
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