The Resident Evil franchise has puttered along for years on the fumes of Milla Jovovich’s charisma and the public’s love for zombie movies. Still, considering the raging idiocy of the second film, and the thorough-going mediocrity of the third film, it would be rather surprising that the new fourth film even exists if you didn’t know that Jovovich is married to the film’s director, Paul W.S. Anderson. However, while the film may benefit from my lowered expectations, Resident Evil: Afterlife was rather more fun than I expected it to be, though merely having a fast pace and decent action sequences doesn’t quite raise it to the level of being legitimately good.
It’s four years after the zombie apocalypse that happened at the end of the first movie. Jovovich returns as Alice, a genetically-engineered superwoman who is still combating the evil Umbrella Corporation, the company that made her and was responsible for the apocalypse in the first place.
This film finds Alice, after a striking opening action sequence in an Umbrella base, traveling to Alaska in search of a zombie-free haven called Arcadia. Failing to find it, she then travels to Los Angeles, where she finds survivors holed up against the undead in a prison, and along the way she teams up with series veteran Claire Redfield (Heroes’ Ali Larter), Claire’s brother, Chris (Wentworth Miller, still employing the monotone that got him through four seasons of Prison Break, but now with a sneer added to his repertoire), and a former professional basketball player named Leon (Boris Kodjoe), among others.
Returning to the director’s chair this time out is Anderson, who helmed the first film in the series but has only produced and written the other entries. Anderson began his career making pretty but empty genre films (Event Horizon, Mortal Kombat), and then segued into turning good source material into mediocre dreck (Alien vs. Predator, Death Race).
I’ve long regarded Anderson as perhaps the hackiest hack ever to squeeze out a movie, and the mere mention of his name is enough to fill me with an almost feral rage (I can hardly keep from snarling as I’m writing this sentence), but I have to admit that here he has made a nicely paced little action movie.
The films in this series have steadily grown in scope as they have gone along, but despite containing the destruction of an entire city, this movie is admirably economical in its goals. With a minimum of fuss it digs in and keeps good action sequences coming at a fairly steady clip for its entire running time. There’s remarkably little dead space.
Anderson also shot the film in 3-D, and integrates it into the film’s action scenes in a way that really embraces the sleazy spectacle of the technology. One such scene finds Alice and Claire squaring off a hulking creature who carries around a giant axe (and throws it at the screen, naturally). Another finds Jovovich jumping off a building, tethered to a rope, while dozens of zombies follow her over the side like lemmings. Most of the 3-D in the movie consists of various objects (knives, bullets, giant axes) flying at our faces, but Anderson keeps the scenes interesting.
The extra dimension sadly doesn’t extend to the characters. Four films in, and we still don’t know a hell of a lot about Alice. Of course, the series was always built less around acting and character development, and more around Jovovich’s beauty and charisma, and the way her giant eyes and lithe body contrast with her killing hordes of zombies.
However, the supporting characters also never grow beyond types here. You’ve got the people tough enough to take care of themselves that they might make it through the movie, one weaselly guy in a suit (Sons of Anarchy’s Kim Coates) and a bunch of zombie fodder.
The film’s main villain, Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), is about as blatant a theft of Agent Smith from The Matrix as can be imagined, while being about 10 times more annoying than Hugo Weaving. From the black suit and sunglasses to the over-enunciated words to the super-speed and kung-fu moves, virtually everything about the character is the same, except for the name.
The zombies clamoring for brains in this film are certainly out of luck, because there aren’t any to be found here, but for audiences willing to accept a dopey but enjoyable little B-movie that keeps the action coming at a steady clip, Resident Evil: Afterlife will satisfy.
Carey Norris writes about film for Birmingham Weekly. Send your comments to editor@bhamweekly.com.
lucy
