REVIEW: Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D

Video game roots and director’s adaptation find a… decent balance.

Written And Directed By: Paul W. S. Anderson

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Wentworth Miller

Running Time: 97 minutes

Rated: 18A for language and gore

I’m gonna have to start this by admitting that I hold a deep grudge against the Resident Evil films that preceded this one. Being one of my favourite game series growing up I suppose it might have been destiny that I hated them (especially considering the terrible reputation video game to movie adaptations have earned ). Although this installment doesn’t have me singing an entirely different tune, it didn’t fuel my hatred further and I’ll tell you why.

First of all, the movie was gorgeous. If anything was drastically improved over Paul W.S. Anderson’s 8 years of raping and pillaging Capcom’s survival horror franchise it was the cinematography. I’m not a big fan of the whole 3D extravaganza the movie industry is going through (it gives me a huge headache), but I will admit that it helped RE: Afterlife a great deal. It was a visually stunning and fun movie, and it was made clear from the get-go that the eye-popping 3D sceneswere its main gimmick to “advance their story”.

And there’s where we have some issues. Anyone who’s gotten familiar with the movie series will know that it’s always lacked in good narrative. The storyline continues a year and some odd months after the last installment left off where our heroine, Alice, is in search of the alleged safe haven known as “Arcadia” to find her fellow survivors. Aside from that plot device and trying to put that darn Albert Wesker to a stop… the movie doesn’t offer much else and doesn’t have a heck of a lot more to tell us. It was disappointing how little substance was put into an hour and a half long movie. I feel as if the movie would have been about a half an hour shorter if they left out the ridiculous amounts of slow motion fighting and bullet time strewn about the film.

What I enjoyed the most is that after 3 previous attempts to adapt Resident Evil properly into a movie, the 4th installment does somewhat succeed. They tossed in half-assed elements and characters from the games in the previous movies and never managed to win me over. As much as Albert Wesker’s character annoys me to no end I can say that his casting and the writing for his character were nearly spot on in this movie. RE:After life finally turned pieces plucked from the games and made them recognizable and even a few key elements of the movie tie directly into the most recent game, Resident Evil 5. I can’t say much without spoiling it (for those who don’t already know) so make sure you don’t get up as soon as the credits roll. There’s a surprise in store for you.

I did walk into this movie expecting to hate it, and I will grudgingly admit that it did exceed my expectations. You can’t walk into this movie expecting a masterpiece, but even as a shadow of Resident Evil’s as a game the movie was enjoyable enough. It was a visually awesome movie, with great over-the-top action sequences and a good enough storyline to pull it all together. It won't be winning any Oscars, though.

I give it a 6 /10