RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE (2010)

RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE (2010)

Tagline: She's back... And she's bringing a few of her friends.

(Action, Sci-Fi, Star Power) [R]

So, people, whatever's waiting for you out there, just know one thing: You are gonna be in for the fight of your lives.

This one picks up after the events of EXTINCTION and Alice and her clones had led a full-blown attack on the headquarters of Umbrella in Tokyo. Meanwhile, the trip to Alaska for Claire, K-Mart, and other survivors, took a lot longer than they expected. When Alice finally catches up with Claire she has no memory of what happened. Meanwhile, a small band of survivors is making due in an old well-fortified Los Angeles prison with thousands of undead surrounding them. When Alice and Claire come together with the group, can they find their way to Arcadia?

Quite honestly this is my second favorite movie in the entire series and I have no freakin idea what critics were watching when they decided to hate on it. If you watched any of the first 3 films you had to know what you might be getting and having the majority of the film happen in a prison setting with hordes of un-dead surrounding it is a near-perfect setting. Literally like a DIE HARD situation on crack. Nope, most critics couldn’t handle it. That’s too bad. For what this thing is and what it’s trying to do, it’s spectacular. I do kind of wish the Tokyo “clone” invasion scene was longer, but it was still pretty freakin awesome and I do like that when all was done and said, there was “only one Alice” like I mentioned in my last review, but of course, this crap is going to come up in another movie so it is what it is. I can’t stand clone stuff unless it’s STAR WARS, because how else are you going to get enough soldiers to take over the galaxy geez. 

The additions in this movie are awesome. I do like Wentworth Miller (UNDERWORLD) who plays Chris Redfield and he typically crushes every role he’s in, and this wasn’t an exception, but the best new addition was Boris Kodjoe (STARSHIP TROOPERS 3: MARAUDER) who kills it as Luther. We also get Kacey Clarke (LAKE PLACID 3) as Crystal Waters and she is also pretty awesome. Crystal would be one of my “TOP 100 characters that got a fate they didn’t deserve” candidates if I ever made such a list. Of course, we also get Milla Jovovich (RESIDENT EVIL) back as Alice, and Ali Larter (FINAL DESTINATION) back as Claire Redfield, and both are epic. On top of that, we have a Sienna Guillory (CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG) sighting and it’s never bad when she shows up, but this is a different Jill Valentine than we saw before. Apparently, her situation in this movie actually does along with the RESIDENT EVIL 5 video game storyline. I can’t verify that though, I probably said this before, but I don’t play the Resident Evil game series. 

As far as the pacing goes the first 15 minutes or so are definitely “breakneck” and the film never really gets back to that left afterward, but the story is actually pretty good. What can be said is that this thing isn’t in any way at all going for realism. The stunts are always really bizarre. I guess there is some backstory out there saying that Alice is still tough as nails because her T-Virus is still fighting whatever Wesker injects her with, but that doesn’t explain why Claire and Luther also possess seemingly inhuman abilities. So this is where you just have to sit back and watch physics get taken to the woodshed like it at the last piece of bacon. 

I thought this thing was a blast with a really cool kind of hard techno soundtrack. This is another 6 out of 7 for the series. Just the opening “breakout in the rain” was a brilliantly shot piece of cinematic genius even if the rest of the movie doesn’t meet some of the more “fine cinema” standards. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF CONSTANTIN FILM AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.