15 September 2010

Review: Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D


Urban: For zombie movies, you're better off with Zombieland. For video game movies, better off with Prince of Persia.

Urban: This is the fourth in the series of Resident Evil films and the first that I have seen from beginning to end since the original. I did see parts of the third film, and thought that it handled the desert wasteland of a zombie apocalypse at least as well as any other zombie/apocalypse film (I think that Book of Eli and Terminator: Salvation both used the same gas station set).

This film does everything that it can to take advantage of the 3D stylings, which don't look bad at all, but which definitely are featured at the expense of the story, which is unintelligible. Having not seen the other films, I felt as lost as I did watching the original. All that I could deduce was that although earth was barren except for zombies and precious few holdouts, a gigantic corporation continued to house thousands of employees and test products underground. Why do they continue to test chemical weapons? There is no one to fight anymore! To add to this mistery, after apparently being injected with a serum that neutralizes the deadly "T virus" Milla Jovovich should lose her ability to be an outstanding zombie killer. Nonetheless, she is able to survive a deadly helicopter crash immediately after. Even though it occurs in the first 15 minutes of the film, this incident is not mentioned again for the rest of the film.

Once you get past these inexcusable story elements, what remains is your basic zombie movie, filmed in 3D, and Ali Larter. It's amazing how far those elements go with viewers these days when they are done well.

Urban: Not recommended.
Read on...