Movie Review: Resident Evil: Afterlife (NC16)

I ain't a fan of Resident Evil but I thought the movie plot's backdrop was really interesting. A virus known as T-virus was accidentally released into the human population and it turned them into killer zombies. The very few human survivors struggled against the endless and tireless zombie hordes as they barricaded themselves against the flesh-eating zombies.

The female protagonist, Alice, is one formidable survivor because not only she is the only human with genes capable of merging with the T-virus and survived without the zombie transformation, she is also experimented upon by the mysterious Umbrella Corporation (which is the culprit behind the T-virus) and is implanted with powers beyond the ordinary human.

Alice, in this installment of the movie, tries to find the location of Arcadia, which has been broadcasting over the radio waves that it is a sanctuary against the T-virus, providing shelter, protection and food for all the remaining survivors who have managed to elude and evade the zombies across the world. Alice arrives at Arcadia, only to find an empty island full of aircraft supposedly left behind by survivors who were lured by the radio broadcast. Alice then goes to Los Angeles with her two-seater propeller plane and discovers a small group of survivors besieged within a city prison. Will Alice manage to rally and rescue this band of unusual survivors with conflicting interests and find the true Arcadia and the rest of the survivors who abandoned their aircraft? I won't spoil the movie here.

Personally, I think the movie is only passable because beyond the movie's exciting and fiery firefights and zombie slaughtering, which usually end with blood-splattering to the head by the twin powerful shotguns or the samurai swords carried by Alice, the movie lacks depth and explanation on why some scenes are not continued through properly and just fizzled, expecting the audience to figure out the ill logic behind them.

For example, for all her skills and agility, Alice was actually overpowered by the leader of the Umbrella Corporation so easily and assuming all her superhuman powers were removed by the latter in that blow, how could Alice have survived the catastrophic plane crash without breaking a limb or two? There were also some cheap scares without truly showing the tenacity of the zombies, so despite their numbers, the zombies seem to be more functional as mere cannon or explosive fodder than to actually push the intensity of the movie. In short, the movie becomes Alice vs Umbrella Corporation with the zombies and other survivors as mere forgettable expendables.

I would only give the movie a 2.5 popcorn out of a possible 5.0 because it has so much room for improvement especially in terms of character development and zombie action. Most of the blood shed could have had more meaning than a simple scream and struggling limbs.