World-famed gaming franchise, Resident Evil, has returned yet again for another action-packed zombie-mutant movie in the form of third sequel, Resident Evil: Afterlife.
The film gets off to a promising start in the opening credits by travelling back four years to see how the t-virus and the Umbrella Corporation gained its foothold. This introductory scene is set in a rainy part of Japan and has some very strong cinematography, primarily when the camera focuses on a young girl in the middle of a busy pedestrian crossing, symbolically set amongst a ceiling of umbrellas. She slowly meets eyes with an older man and then instantly pounces on him, ripping into his neck and starting the spread of the T-Virus.
Picking up from the end of the last film, the first 20minutes of Resident Evil: Afterlife focuses on Alice (Milla Jovovich) successfully destroying the underground base of Umbrella and its inhabitants, with the help of her trusty clones. Albeit flawless in delivery, the initial Matrix-esque fight scene is just too long and a bit excessive – so much so that I was reasonably pleased when Wesker, Umbrella’s latest head honcho, escapes in a plane and blows the HQ (and Alice’s clones) to smithereens.
Wesker soon discovers the ‘original Alice’ lurking in the back of his plane, and after a brief stand-off, manages to stab her in the neck with a syringe containing the cure for the t-virus. Sure enough, Alice manages to escape from Wesker’s clutches but thanks to the anti-virus, has now lost all her supernatural powers.
The film maintains a reasonable storyline; despite some evident plotholes. Alice, in her returned-to-human state heads to Alaska to find Claire and the rest of her friends, only to discover that the whole Arcadia rescue mission was a farce, a trap set by Umbrella so that they had new specimens to experiment on. Only Claire has been left behind, and even she has been marred by memory loss, courtesy of an electrical parasite from Umbrella. Once Claire has regained her memories, the pair of them head back to LA to find and save their friends, having to battle a zombie or two on the way.
Unfortunately, despite a reasonable enough beginning, Resident Evil: Afterlife loses its way by not explaining enough about what’s going on. Followers of the games will be fine, and probably even pleased to see some newer game concepts taken into the film, but any other viewer would be left with gazillions of questions, ranging from: ‘where did Chris Redfield and Wesker come from?’ to, ‘Who’s that big guy with the axe?’ (The Executioner), and ‘why are the zombies even more mutated all of a sudden?!’
Although this film may be harder to follow than its predecessors, I’m still convinced that Resident Evil fanboys who follow the games religiously will be satisfied with the level of action, and the likeness between film and game. Resident Evil: Afterlife makes up for a lack of dialogue by retaining the traditional Resident Evil ethos; killing a shitload of zombies and looking hot doing it. The film also maintains its usual tense, edge of your seat feeling, significantly magnified by the use of 3D.
Aided by the omnipresent RealD technology, some great post-apocalyptic SFX, and Jovovich kicking ass just as much as usual, I give it 6/10.
Oh, and just a side-note, make sure you stay past the credits – there’s one of those sneaky ‘extra bits’ afterwards. And yes. It sets the film up for yet another continuation…
They are 'mutated zombies' because it's not specifically written about zombies. It is about the infection and what the virus is. As it stated at the beginning of the film Wesker is a member (clearly a top member) of the umbrella corporation who took the t-virus to recover from an accident but it now fights him for control of his body. So we know who he is and as far as the film goes hes the bad guy! And his big reason for appearance is that he wants to eat alice so that he also can join perfectly with the virus. As for the game followers, the only major link to the games are the characters, the main story line is written seperately. A key example of this for you ametuer game to film critics is explained in one question; which game is Alice in? Answer: she is not in any of the games. As for the executioner, albeit that his presence ius a bit random he is clearly another mutation of the t-virus, as was nemesis. It is only his axe that has no explination! Thanks for reading though? Love Danum x x x x (Can't trust these reviews ay?)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback/opinions Dan, it's good to know you're taking an interest! However, I feel the need to make a rebuttal, as you seem to have missed my point a bit.
ReplyDeleteAs I've been an avid watcher of the films from the beginning, I know that the virus doesn't just produce zombies, but mutations of these zombies as well. My real qualm (if you read back) is WHEN did these zombies get so mutated? In previous films they never had the mouth tentacle bits and all of sudden they've appeared with them in this chapter. Now it doesn't take a smartarse to establish that the virus is perpetually mutating, but what I want to know, as a viewer, is how/when/why it got to this extent of mutation? The film just doesn't explain itself enough. At least in the game, RE5, it's fully explained that the mouth tentacles are a different strand of the t-virus.
With regards to Wesker, again you don't have to be Albert Einstein to realise he's the 'big bad' of Umbrella but again, my issue is that if he's such a big deal why has he only just appeared now, in this sequel? Again, it's a lack of explanation and a weak backstory as far as I'm concerned. It's easy to chuck any old character into a film, but they need to have depth and relatability, which I don't think is something that has been fully developed with Wesker.
Which brings me to Alice. She may be the big anomaly between the film and the game but the viewer has come to know Alice. Unlike Wesker her character does have depth and we know everything there is to known about her!
As far as comparing the Executioner to Nemesis - as far as I'm concerned there is no worthy comparison here. The mutation that was Nemesis was not only well explained in the 2nd film but also a) lasted longer than 5minutes and b) was actually relevant to the film.
Generally, I thought the film was good, but not great. I feel like it was rushed and that the writers just put a lot of things into the film for the sake of it; perhaps to appease some of the game fans, I don't know. Maybe it's just me but I think, as a viewer, I was left to make too many of my own assumptions on things that really should have been more detailed.
But of course, at the end of the day it's all down to opinion and how you felt about the film, right? ;)