My single hope going into the theater to see the latest Resident Evil movie was that it would be, at the very least, an improvement over the boring as watching paint dry third movie in the series. I knew that I would not be seeing a good movie, none of the Resident Evil movies can be called good in the traditional sense of the word. Entertaining, yes, except for that third movie. Good, no.
But even with lowered expectations, Resident Evil: Afterlife barely managed to meet them. Afterlife, like the three films that it follows, is a plotless, characterless, mess of a movie. An incoherent and rambling collection of eye candy that makes not one bit of sense. A movie that has shamelessly ripped off countless other movies, yet dares to present its warmed over concoction of cinematic thievery as if it were fresh and original. Which it isn’t.
And if you see it in 3D, it isn’t all that boring. Since this is a one and done movie for me (there is no way in hell that I would willingly sit through it a second time) I cannot compare it to a 2D presentation, nor would I want to. Suffice to say that there is no reason for Resident Evil: Afterlife to exist other than to dazzle viewers with 3D effects (and there is many a dazzling, even breathtaking, 3D effect to "ooh" and "ah" at) and to allow film series creator/writer/director Paul "W S" Anderson to incorporate select concepts and creatures from the game Resident Evil 4 into his almost in-name-only cinematic spin-off.
Watching Resident Evil: Afterlife is akin to watching someone else play a video game. There are countless long and drawn out slow motion fight sequences and all the dialog exchanges play like expository cut scenes. But whoever was playing this particular game skipped a few of those cut scenes. Namely the ones that explained where the zombie mutants and the 12 foot tall axe wielding behemoth came from. These additions really come across as if they had wandered in from some other movie.
Speaking of some other movie, let me address the ending, and no, there will be no spoilers here.
Every Resident Evil movie has ended with an exciting cliffhanger that promises a slambang sequel, and Afterlife is no different in that regard. But this entry breaks with the tradition of the cliffhanger ending looking to set-up a far more interesting and entertaining movie (one that somehow never actually gets made). Afterlife’s out-of-left field cliffhanger looks like the supporting cast and second unit stunt crew for G.I. Joe 2 came on the wrong set. Needless to say, but I was unimpressed and it is highly unlikely that I will be wasting anymore time and money on this particular "horror" franchise.
One and a half star out of four.
and 2) the use of an explosion to clear a path through a zombie horde from the 
remake.
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