Movie Review: Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D (2010)
BWAHAHA! Yes little ones, it's happening! I am reviewing the lastest of Paul W.S Anderson's 'masterpieces' and it's gonna be FUN!... Or will it?
So. By now all of us have watched some if not all of the series supposedly inspired by Capcom's best-selling videogames and by now, all of us are probably sick of 'em. When Anderson revealed that Aferlife was going to be released in the re-emerging 3D technology, many eyes were rolled and many curses uttered.
True confession: When I saw the first film, I knew nothing of the games, therefore I had no pre-conceived notions about it and I actually enjoyed it, well, for what it was, plus it had an impressive score by Marilyn Manson that I own. I also like Milla Jovovich- despite the dreadful Mary Sue known as Alice she has come to embody, she has managed to keep her private life private and she hasn't been caught doing anything stupid, so she has my respect. She has also proved herself to be a solid actress given the right material and she has a very vibrant personality. Personally, I don't wish anything bad on her, I really don't. But despite this, I despise the character of Alice. She goes against one of the creeds that has made the games successful- she cannot die. She is 'flawless'. She is 'perfect'. In the games, none of the characters are like this and they are quite prone to dying at any given moment (even Wesker). In Afterlife this mind-numbing stupidity continues even when Alice has her superhuman powers taken away from her- get this: she emerges from a devastating plane wreak with nothing more than a bit of blood on her otherwise perfectly made up face and a slight limp. Come on. Seriously.
Granted, this movie is a whole exercise of incomprehensible cliches, mind-numbingly irrelevant game references and plot holes, AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE EXCESSIVE SLO-MO, but one of them was the fight (if you could call it that) between 'Wesker', 'Chris' and 'Claire' that tries (and fails) to ape the battle between Chris, Sheva and Wesker toward the end of Resident Evil 5. As some of you may know, Chris and Wesker in the games have had a nasty history, and they are true blue nemeses. In the movie equivalent, 'Chris' and 'Claire' just almost randomly show up, 'Wesker', who presumably hasn't even MET the siblings says something about a family reunion and them being an 'inconvienince'- uh, HOW? They've only just popped up armed with pissy pistols, they're not the ones who have been hounding you, dumb shit.
Click to viewGAH.
Another big as dog's balls piece of idiocy- the Majini creatures- where did those things come from? No explanation was given, not even a hint. And what's this nonsense about Wesker being some kind of cannibal? Anderson and Wesker's actor Shawn Roberts wanted to make the character more accurate to the one in the the fifth game- Wesker was a lot of things, but part of the Lecter cult... O RLY?
Wesker's fans did not respond kindly to the news
"But Boomkat," I hear you ask, "if it's really so bad, why are you even wasting your time writing about it?" to which I respond with "Despite all this, I actually mildly enjoyed this movie.".
YES. I actually didn't mind this installment, despite all of it's fanfic.net level of tomfoolery. Let me tell you why. I saw this movie with a friend who actually enjoys the series and seeing a friend happy makes me happy (and less prone to dropping criticism), on top of that, given this film was filmed specifically with 3D technology rather than merely being added as an afterthought, it is perhaps one of the most technologically impressive movies that has come out this year. I guess even I'm not completely immune to bright, shiny new things. Also, I must say the soundtrack by tomandandy was rather impressive, just like the other film's OST's. One thing I have never been able to fault Anderson's glorified fanficion on are excellent scores, even if they are of the blustery 'ints, ints, ints' variety.
And so sue me, I also didn't mind the trailer- it was a pretty awesome trailer complete with a pretty awesome song.
Plus this dude was KINDA cool until the Alice Brigade strikes
Overall, allow me to put this simply- if you enjoy the films, great- you're watching a movie you like, don't let me get you down. If you don't, don't worry, you are not alone. The best we can hope for is that since Anderson shows no intention of ceasing the series, we can only hope either Alice dies and stays dead or that Anderson elects to focus his movies on an already existing character. Who knows, it MIGHT make a difference... but don't go holding your breath- Anderson is appealing to fans on Twitter to help him make another movie- Lord knows how that will ever turn out.