RESIDENT EVIL : AFTERLIFE
Milla Jovovich
ACTION, SCI-FI
Hot on the tail of Umbrella Corporation, Alice and her clones tackle one branch of the elusive operations after another. Picking up traces of an old friend reignites her search for survivors and plunges Alice back into the zombie infested mayhem that has engulfed much of the planet.
THE GOOD : Bullet splicing 3D/CGI slow mo shots are a visual delight. There's a few scares (predictable) and enough cheesy cliches to garner a few chuckles.
THD BAD : Plot a hamfisted mess, characters are uninspired.
THE UGLY : The dog with the splitting jaws and mutated heads is a nasty visual.
> 2/10
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THOUGHTS / SPOILER WARNING :
Overall I found little reason to watch this movie other than the fact that it was filmed at our school causing for quite the ruckus and arousing the curiosity of an otherwise apathetic student body. So I shelled out for the movie ticket when the film finally came out to see just how producers ended up portraying the particulars on the campus and I was delighted with not one, but two scenes, the latter was filmed at the more famous Robarts Library at St. George.
There were some chuckles like the casting of Wentworth Miller as a very expressionless Chris Redfield who ironically is found in a jail cell during his character's debut in the movie. (Prison Break, anyone?) The rest of the movie is just one blunder after another, story wise and in and of itself. I doubt any fan of the video games even bother to follow the movie series at this point.
The gratuitous usage of CGI benefits the movie's post apocalyptic renditions of cityscape and frequent special effects shots but in this day and age, many video games are actually outclassing movies with respect to story, cinematics and characters. The previous episodes were better but the series as a whole is on a downhill slide and with room for a 5th installment, I hope they use it wisely or not at all.
