Movie Review: Resident Evil: Afterlife

This movie was way better than I thought it would be. Seriously. I don't usually watch films under this genre and expect anything profound, but I do expect to be entertained and this movie did just that.

I admit, it was really interesting how Resident Evil managed the rare feat of almost - let me emphasize the word, almost - seamlessly tying together a wide variety of movie styles: from the zombie horror genre mixed with the slickness of the Matrix style and shootouts all in a disaster movie type of plot and characters.

Sure, it wasn't an overly complicated story as it was as dead straight as zombie walking, but I thought the whole thing worked decently well. I mean, I somehow accepted the story of the other three movies, so why not this? Ha! I have to say though that this film had an effective bits of humor that propelled this one compared to its predecessors. Yes, there's a bit of silliness, but the scriptwriters definitely added some imagination to this one and that's good.

Cast wise, I have no complaints whatsoever. Then again, not so many guys would actually complain when the cast includes Milla Jovovich and throws in Ali Larter. Haha. Wentworth Miller showing up was cool, although a bit Scofield-like. But he was great as a con, so whatever. Generally, I thought the acting was good.

Visually, it was surprisingly very good. From the slow building opening sequence to the more complex scenes incorporating slow motion action sequences with fast moving elements was such a visual treat. I don't want to spoil anyone but one of the best scenes in the movie took place in a prison bathroom. I guarantee that you will duck as the axe comes toward you. Haha. It had such a unique stylistic flair.

Now, there was nothing mind blowing about the action sequences in this film, but they were fun to watch, at the very least. The gore effects were quite good and sufficiently disgusting. Oh, and the scoring was very interesting.

One quibble I have with the film though was a freeze frame shot of the helicopter crash in the beginning with Wesker and Alice, which as far as I could tell, served no real purpose. It was neat looking, yes, but it doesn't really have anything to do with how she survived it, or him for that matter. It was just confusing to me.

Overall, the movie was solid and punchy at every second - though somehow, got a bit tired at the end with all the slow motions. Haha. I'm not really sure if this was better than the previous installments, but this one was just as entertaining with cool shot after cool shot continuously.