I always felt the Resident Evil series has been unfairly maligned it’s one of those series that either you get or you don’t. It’s not trying to be Citizen Kane and I don’t think it ever tried to be faithful to the video game source material, but I felt it paid adequate homage to it without being tied to it. Director Paul WS Anderson is a fun director who doesn’t take his material super seriously. I generally don’t like Zombie movies, but always felt the style and flow of the RE films represents the best aspects of the genre.
What makes RE work for me has always been Milla Jovovich’s portrayal of Alice as the central hero in this Universe. She’s tough and kicks butt in all the right spots but is still able to give us the softer side of Alice. She never becomes a robotic killing machine, but when she does decide to bust a cap in a Zombie’s head, it’s a sight to behold.
RE 3 was pretty bad, but I loved the ending, Resident Evil: Afterlife picks up right where the last one left off with Alice and her clones attacking the Umbrella corporation. It’s a fun opening sequence but there are several moments in this film where Anderson doesn’t know how to get out of his own way. There are a few too many Matrix homages and in the first 10 minutes a ridiculous freeze frame shot that lasts way too long. Some of the gaping ridiculousness appears here as well when Alice manages to survive a plane crashing into a mountain.
There’s a major plot point in the beginning and mystery but for a good chunk of the movie it’s not touched on at all. Primarily due to Alice not knowing her every move and conversation is being watched and listened to so as an audience member we’re stuck watching these split second sequences and wondering what’s going on while the primary characters are completely unaware it’s happening giving them nothing to respond to. It’s a bit annoying.
I couldn’t help but wonder, would this movie have been greenlit if not for the 3D gimmick? Probably not, would it have been better if it wasn’t in 3D? Definitely. The last couple of 3D films (Piranha and Step UP) renewed my faith a bit in the 3D genre, RE 3D reminded me why I hate it. While Anderson wrote the film specifically for the medium – a lot of people may hate that, but I think it should make 3D movies better if the director really knows why they are shooting in 3D and plan for it at the script stage. Anderson proves this theory doesn’t work in practice. It also seemed like the budget went towards the 3D and not on improving the SFX because there were some incredibly cheesy looking shots.
The 3D here is really bad – little depth of field, kind of blurry in spots and utterly pointless. I felt like I was watching something that was Post Converted and not a movie designed and shot in 3D. I don’t know if the poor quality was the theater I was in or the movie itself -in the end it doesn’t matter, the experience was terrible and really, AMC do I have to start watching your crappy commercials in badly post converted 3D? Is it too much to ask that the lights be turned off during previews?
The 2nd Act of the movie devolves into this long talking, set up where Alice and her recently rescued friend Claire (Ali Larter) try and save what they believe are the last survivors and figure out the mystery of a ship. Is it ok to give a major spoiler away? Guess not.
There’s a moment in this movie where I was left thinking what was the point of it all? But the RE Series is mostly pointless so it’s not something where you have to nick pick everything to death. There are some other surprises in this movie that I don’t want to give away.
It only has to deliver decent action, some zombies and a decent story to tie it all together and on that basis the movie succeeds. Stay for the post credit scene, it’s pretty good but I didn’t understand it’s significance. Have I said recently how much I despise the Post Credit gimmick? If a scene is important enough to end a movie on then darn it, end it with the scene. I always feel cheated when I don’t get to see it.
Final Grade B-
EM Review
By Michelle Alexandria
Originally posted 9.11.2010