Review | Resident Evil: Afterlife

Say what you will about the series, it’s at least impressive anyone managed to squeeze four films out of this middling videogame adaptation. Of course a middling videogame adaptation is still leagues ahead of most videogame adaptations, so we can’t be too choosey.

As the series has progressed the world of Resident Evil slowly evolved to become more convoluted (of course nowhere near the extent of the games), with the evil Umbrella corporation’s genetic shenanigans getting increasingly bonkers.

With number four, however, proceedings take an abrupt shift – the film ditches its clones-with-mind-powers madness and goes in for a by-the-numbers zombie scenario.

A few years after her Mad Max-esque escapades of last film, Alice (Mila Jovavich) leads an army of psionically-powered clones in an assault on an underground Umbrella stronghold. While the slow-mo gunplay and cartwheeling seems to assume we have already forgotten The Matrix ever happened, the genetically altered bat-shit insane premise at least sounds original.

Unfortunately it all ends in a thermonuclear bang within the first ten-minutes.

We are then left with the surviving original Alice to, after a brief jaunt to Alaska to find her old road buddy Claire, help a rag-tag group of survivors on a last-ditch run to safety through a zombie-ridden city.

There isn’t a lot of suspense in any of the Resident Evil flicks, they’re predominantly action outings rather than part of the zombie genre proper. But with the adoption of such a vintage ‘…of the dead’ premise, Afterlife is almost obliged to take a stab at the real shuffling menace deal.

Aside from the introduction of a hulking executioner zombie with a giant meat tenderiser, the film really has nothing new to add. The characters all die off in the exact order you would imagine, the wire-stunt action isn’t fresh or exciting and the only real bit of anticipation occurs when it looks like Alice might be undressing for a shower.

Considered either an average action film or half-hearted zombie flick, Afterlife makes it clear the series ran out of steam several reels ago and aside from a genuine reboot it might be best to let not-quite-well-enough alone now.