Resident Evil: Afterlife (Blu-ray / DVD)
Reviewed by Uncle Creepy
Starring Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Sienna Guillory, Boris Kodjoe, Shawn Roberts, Spencer Locke, Wentworth Miller
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
Distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
You know how there are religious extremists out there who take whatever religion they believe in and twist it into something so perverse that all the good of their subject is nowhere to be found? That’s kind of like what happened with the Resident Evil movies, and Paul W.S. Anderson is your filmmaking extremist. These movies barely resemble their video game cousins. Let’s start with the score card thus far, shall we?
Resident Evil – Had nods to the game series. Was an okay flick.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse – The brainiacs at the helm of this one decided that we didn’t need zombies or anything else that made the first film kind of cool. Instead we got a big rubber dude.
Resident Evil: Extinction – We travel even further away from the established video game this series is based upon but at the very least there were zombies. Lots and lots of zombies.
Resident Evil: Afterlife – Where to begin? How about with what is meant to resemble a plot.
Alice (Milla Jovovich) is traveling the world via small plane looking for any survivors she can find. Of course she finds them along with a couple of others from the last film (see: a returning Ali Larter), and before you know it Alice is once again going head-up with the evil Wesker (Roberts), who has taken away her super-powers as a means to go forward with his plan for world domination. Sadly for fans of the undead, the zombie action is once again minimal at best.
Here’s the thing … everyone is dead. Money has no worth. The planet is in shambles. Just what is Wesker trying to accomplish? Who is he planning to rule over? It just makes no sense. Neither does the fact that even though the world is in ruins, Milla has an unending amount of lipstick and eyeliner, which she always makes sure that she applies before recording her video diary that she’s making for no one using her tiny camcorder that much like the populace of the planet just won’t die. Please! Someone reveal what battery type she’s using! That company’s stock will go through the roof!
While there are a couple of cool scenes, nearly every moment of this flick is either unintentionally hilarious or just plain annoying. This is not Resident Evil. This is a ninety-six-minute long music video for a song that really sucks. There are a few enemy characters from the game that show up now and then, but their appearances make little to no sense whatsoever in the context of the film’s story. It’s like they’re just there so Anderson can say, “See? I knew about the *insert random baddie here*! I’m a true fan of the video games!”
The action is constantly presented in spinning slow motion. I really believe that without the constant slowed down “stylish(!)” moments, Resident Evil: Afterlife would have a run-time of just a little over an hour. It’s that overused and that ludicrous. For all the boatloads of action sequences, it’s mystifying how not a single one of them manages to elicit even a little excitement.
In terms of the Blu-ray, the image and audio are nothing short of stunning. This movie looks and sounds incredible. The transfer is sharp and as detailed-filled as can be, and the 5.1 DTS sound mix will have bullets whizzing around your entire home. If only the source material was better!
As far as the supplemental material goes you can buy Resident Evil: Afterlife three different ways – Either in a 2D or 3D Blu-ray package, which have identical special features, or you can dig on the crusty old DVD, which is home to a few goodies (all noted below).
This franchise has its fans, and Sony has released a perfect gift for them with this package. The Blu-ray editions have everything you could possibly want! The obligatory back-patting commentary track (guaranteed to make your stomach hurt), outtakes, eight deleted scenes, picture-in-picture features, a sneak peek at the upcoming Resident Evil: Damnation, and seven featurettes which explore every single aspect of this flick. It’s a jaw-dropping amount of content although after watching the film, it isn’t likely that you’ll dive right into it. Watching them is almost confusing because they show all the cool stuff they tried to pull off but failed miserably at. It really makes you wonder how they could have screwed up this badly. Still, the aforementioned fans will eat it up.
To make matters worse for those of us with working brains, if you haven’t upgraded to a 3D TV by now, you’ll have to watch this with the film’s only redeeming effect missing. If you thought this was bad when you saw it in 3D, brother, 2D is excruciating.
What we have here, folks, is the one of the year’s best packages for one of the year’s worst movies. With all the reboots and reimaginings happening today, as a Resident Evil fan, I’m praying someone would just hit the reset button. That’s unlikely, though, as thanks mainly to inflated 3D ticket prices and brain dead America, this flick made bank at the box office, and it ends on a cliffhanger. Yay.
2D Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D Special Features
o Back Under the Umbrella: Directing Afterlife
o Band of Survivors: Casting Afterlife
o Undead Dimension: Resident Evil in 3D
o Fighting Back: The Action of Afterlife
o Vision of the Apocalypse: The Design of Afterlife
o New Blood: The Undead of Afterlife
o Pwning the Undead: Gamers of the Afterlife
DVD Special Features
o Band of Survivors: Casting Afterlife
o Fighting Back: The Action of Afterlife
1 out of 5
Special Features:
5 out of 5
Discuss Resident Evil: Afterlife in our comments section below!
Categorized:Reviews
