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Resident Evil: Afterlife


Okay lets finish off the Resident Evil series with the most recent:

Resident Evil: Afterlife



You ever heard the expression 'turn your brain off at the door'? Well be sure to rip it out of your head and feed it to some zombies because Resident Evil: Afterlife raises more and more questions by the second and answers none.

So the original director is back and judging by the tone and style of the film it seems he just discovered The Matrix, because this entire movie echoes it. The movie relies very heavily on slow motion action scenes and a horrible villain who appears to be doing his best Hugo Weaving impression...which is incredibly obvious.



The plot takes off in Tokyo where the evil Umbrella Corp. is somehow still operational and still evil...despite...you know...the apocalypse and all...again. Alice and her clones attack the Umbrella HQ all Trinity style like in The Matrix Reloaded and are conveniently stopped. The original Alice follows Agent Smith...oops...I mean ahem 'Wesker' (the villain) into some sort of airplane thing and has her mental powers removed...also very conveniently. Then after and explosion nobody could have survived, especially without psychic powers, Alice pulls a little plane out of her a** and flies to where the convoy from the last film was headed. See what I mean about no explanations?

Alice makes a habit of documenting and updating her vlogs on her camcorder (where did this come from? How is she charging this thing?). But she runs into one of the characters from the previous film, who has been given a mind control device in the form of a spider or something (see what I mean...nothing is explained).

After the basic plot is set up Alice heads to a prison, which inside houses survivors and...the dude from Prison Break? In an actual prison? And he knows a way out when the plot requires it? Okay...Oh and he has a useless plot twist.

The zombies can now do strange things like grow tentacles out of their mouths and dig, but this was never explained? Why is this happening? But what's worse is the traditional videogame boss, a huge zombie with a giant axe...now where in the world did that come from and why? Also...the zombie dogs are back yet again, and they can split themselves in half...at least they're a different breed.

What's good though? The ensemble is actually entertaining and despite the overuse of slow motion, the action scenes are decent. You can tell that there's been a huge budget increase.

Overall Resident Evil: Afterlife is a mess of unexplained devices and a plot that relies on convenience. All that said, the action is greatly improved and it lets go of the silly 'mental powers' plot...though it's replaced with a sillier ending which still makes me angry. The film is kind of fun and reminds you why The Matrix is a great movie.