Liam Madden’s Film Reviews: Resident Evil: Afterlife

If you fancy a night in watching a DVD, then take a look at the selection available at Island Libraries. At just £1.50 per night, they’re a great bargain. Ed


The issues and arguments towards a movie that used a template of a computer game as its plot-line, could have been seen as a sign of the developing millenium.

Sadly the onscreen story of Alice and her attempts to bring head-shots of reasoning towards the spread of a virus that envelopes most of the human race, thanks to The Umbrella Corporation, could be as inspiring as the ongoing series of films that were the ‘Police Academy’ series.

Lost count of where we’re at
To be honest, I’ve lost count since 1999 as to whether this is part three or four. To be fair ‘Afterlife’ is easily the most impressive of stories and towers above the other episodes with regards to effects.

Mr Anderson as director and ‘writer’ of this particular movie manages to bring the movie back to its strong points by keeping the ‘feel’ of the original game’s atmosphere and developing a story that should anyone have been following it for over ten years probably makes some sense by now.

Similar to other films?
There are partial references towards a screenplay, but they are so minimal within the work of ‘Afterlife’, that they could cause some confusion to the similarities within ‘Underworld’ starring Kate Beckinsale. Or even the continuing films running on from ‘Aliens’.

The only problems with ‘Afterlife’ are that for a first attempt at direction, W.S. Anderson does achieve most of the films goals; to mimic the game but not give the despondent feel of watching and waiting for a turn to play it.

More prominent role for Milla
Milla Jovovich once again rides the performance of beautifully lacking any emotions in playing the part of Alice, but perhaps for the first time in the ongoing series of ‘Resident Evil’ movies seems to have been directed towards a more prominent role, unless anyone has watched ‘The Matrix’ – let’s try and not consider just how ground-breaking that film was here for a second.

‘Afterlife’ manages to ascend neatly where most of the previous movies failed to be observed marvellously and the undoutbedly ‘wooden’ acting throughout causes some concern for most cinematic experiences, until a viewer would comprehend the level of acting used by computer generated characters could far surpass most of the cast within ‘Afterlife’. Yet, that’s the whole point.

Isn’t too bad an effort
Apart from being a movie that does its work to entertain, yet sadly becomes a lesser work than most action movies – ‘Afterlife’ still isn’t too bad an effort and plays through with the biggest horror of horrors – a massive hint that ‘Afterlife’ sadly isn’t where the story finishes.

Even ‘Forrest Gump’ had to finish at some point. Yet what is keeping the franchise of dross that is the ‘Resident Evil’ series going? Will Alice never pack it in and become an accountant? Why do savage dogs get so easily kicked to the ground? How many bullets does Alice have?

If you honestly think that ‘Resident Evil 5 or 6’ will answer any questions to the greater questions of life, then a review from The Sun newspaper may just about pull the rug from under your feet.

‘The Best Resident Evil sequel yet…’ – that’s saying as far as I can remember that perhaps you could strike up a conversation with someone who will argue the differences – that’s more horrific than anything these movies offer.

See Liam’s other film reviews