Film Review: Resident Evil 'Afterlife'

The Umbrella Corporation, which shot to fame following the pop star Rihanna's infamous musical tribute to its biomedical weaponry research, is still up to its usual naughty tricks. Umbrella shareholders must be absolutely delighted, though, because from the looks of their Japanese headquarters the recession has been very kind to them. I suppose that, no matter how dire your financial situation, you always needs to buy zombies, doesn't you? They're like tampons. Or Milk. Or toilet paper. Yeah.



Tampons; not a luxury item.



Zombies; an everyday necessity.

So anyway. Resident Evil: Afterlife; the opening scene. We're in Tokyo. Its raining. Its raining alot. There is a japanese girl standing on a zebra-crossing in a short skirt, but the rain doesn't appear to bother her, because she's letting it soak her through. If my Mother were in this scene, standing next to the short-skirted Japanese girl, she would say something to the girl like 'Put a coat on, Japanese girl! You're making me feel cold!', but my Mother isn't in 'Resident Evil: Afterlife'. They offered it to her, of course, but she had to refuse due to the fact that she had a schedule conflict with the shoot for 'Die Hard 5'.

People walk past the Japanese girl in the short skirt getting soaked on the zebra crossing. They walk past her with umbrellas. Get out of my way, people with umbrellas! I'm trying to watch a film! But the Director must really like umbrellas, because he keeps filming people carrying them. Its almost as if he's trying to tell us something, and I think that what he is trying to tell us is: 'I really like umbrellas'.

Konichiha, Japanese girl!

The Japanese girl is jealous of all these umbrella-carrying show-offs, and she decides to start eating them all. The people crossing the road, I mean. Not the umbrellas. It is worth noting at this point, however, that 'Resident Evil: Afterlife' is such a convoluted and disorganised piece of cinema, that a scene showing a japanese girl eating umbrellas would not have seemed particularly out-of-place within this production as a whole.

The Japanese girl kick-starts the virus, and this little denouement serves as a helpful little reminder that you are watching a film about zombies. The director has to remind us that his film is about zombies, because we see very few zombies throughout the rest of the film.

I searched on Google images for 'Afterlife Zombies', and this is what came up. I don't seem to remember this scene from the film but maybe they cut it?

Enough about the plot though, yeah? Now its time to catch up with Milla Jovovich, who, since we last saw her has been busy getting her hair cut and cloning herself. Cloning herself alot. But I wouldn't dwell on the clones, if I were you, because the director can't be arsed to provide an explanation for them. The Milla clones have decided to siege Umbrella headquarters, but they have all turned up for the siege wearing the same outfit. How embarrassing!

Milla farted! Damn you Milla Jovovich, with your poisonous arse-gas!

The clones (who have dressed themselves in the ever-practical stilletto-heeled knee-high boot for the siege) manage to destroy Umbrella's underground lair, although they all die during the explosion. Milla doesn't seem to mind much, though. Don't worry Milla, I reckon that I'd probably feel the same level of complete indifference if I had a twin that died. Fuck 'em, right? Yeah! Seriously though, where have all those clones come from? Maybe they appeared towards the end of the last Resident Evil film? I can't remember. They all blend into one after a while. The 'Resident Evil' films, not the clones.

'Which of you Bitches copied my outfit?'

The 'original' Milla, or 'Alice', as she insists on calling herself, has escaped Umbrella's underground lair just before the explosion errupted, which is, y'know, helpful, because the film has only just started and without her it would probably have petered out a bit. So Alice has escaped and is on some sort of plane, and she has a plan to kill off the Pilot, not because she really fucking hates Pilots, but because this particular Pilot is an Umbrella employee, and therefore a terrible person worthy of utter hatred. Like people who work in Advertising.

Milla Jovovich: Botox-free and proud.

Rather than just shooting him in the back of the head from a safe distance (which she has the opportunity to do), Alice decides to get within punching distance of the Pilot so that she can...get caught? Yes, that must be it. The Pilot doesn't appear to like the idea of her killing him off this early in the film, though, because he injects her with something (Heroin?) and then kicks her a bit. He has injected Alice with something that will take all of her special powers away. So it is Heroin, then. This film has quite a strong 'Don't Do Drugs' message, if you read between the lines.

Can anybody recommend a good NHS Dentist?

The Pilot tells Alice that she is 'human' again, and she thanks him. I guess 'make you human' is slang for 'getting high'? I don't think that the Pilot actually intended to please Alice when he injected her with the Heroin but she seems quite pleased not to be a zombie-hybrid anymore. You don't have to worry about this much, though, because although you would think that making Alice human again would limit her ability to jump off Skyscraper buildings and to walk up walls, it doesn't. Not at all.

So the now-humanoid-lifeform Alice, limited by her homo-sapian deficiencies, survives the subsequent aircraft explosion COMPLETELY UNHARMED in the way that all humans do when the airoplane that they are a passenger on crash-lands in an explosion of fire and flying metal detritus. Good. Moving on! A competely physically unharmed Alice flies a helicopter towards Alaska. Hang on. Where the fuck did she get that fucking helicopter from? The Director - Paul W S Anderson - doesn't think that you need to know this. Stop wasting his precious time! God! And neither, apparently, does the film's Editor, because we never find out.

Adolescence can be pretty tough.

So far, so good, I think you'll agree? Alice flies the helicopter in search of her missing friends. Her missing friends in Alaska. Good. Also good, because it means that Alice (wearing a full face of make-up) can don this season's ultra-fashionable aviator jacket and not look out of place as she steps out of the helicopter. Or plane. I can't remember. Alice looks for her friends in Alaska, and finds one of them. The missing friend attacks her, but its ok, because the missing friend is wearing a red metal spider on her breasts which has made her attack Alice. Good. No, wait, what? What the fuck?!

'Do you like my new hairstyle? No? Well, fuck you!'

Paul W S Anderson doesn't have time to explain the red metal chest-spider, either. He's a very busy man, you know! But the good thing is that Alice has her friend back. And she decides to tie her up. Lots. I think at this point that the young lad sitting behind me in the cinema began masturbating enthusiastically. Alice flies her friend to...New York? Why does she fly there? We never find out, because Paul W S Anderson has decided that to explain anything would be to detract from the artistic temperament of his film.

The zombies apppear, at first sight, to have abandoned New York, but then, wait! There they are! Congregating around a giant prison, which appears to have survivors standing on the roof garden. I wasn't aware that Prisons had roof gardens, but I suppose that criminal rehabilitation is a complicated and multi-layered process. Alice lands her plane on the prison's rooftop, which you would think would be quite dangerous. But she decides to do it anyway, because she's Alice! Oh Alice! You naughty little zombie-fighting scamp, you!

On the prison roof garden there are several bland and vaguely sketched-out characters, namely; tall, hunky, muscly black basketball player, known as 'Cliche'; attractive latina girl who 'does the cooking', known as 'Stereotype'; untrustworthy shifty older man known as 'Baddie Who Will Die Horribly Later'; his sidekick known as 'I'll Die Horribly Later Too'; jersey muscles known as 'Zombie Fodder #1'; pervy old man known as 'Zombie Fodder #2'; and a fat Wentworth Miller Impressionist in a cage. Alice and the basketball player flirt awkwardly in the way that only an actress married to the Director and a homosexual actor who have been told that they must flirt can.

Last one to reach the finish line gets to star in Paul W S Anderson's next Resident Evil Film.

Wentworth Miller tells Alice that he can show her a way out of the prison if she lets him out of his cage. She doesn't let him out of his cage, and instead goes to have a shower. Cue more awkward flirting with the homosexual basketball player. Then some zombies appear who look an awful lot like the vampires in 'Blade 2'. Do you have anything to confess, Paul W S Anderson? Paul W S Anderson is far too busy to invent his own mythical undead. Don't you know who he is?!

Hello, Vampire from 'Blade 2'

Hello, zombie from Paul WS Anderson's 'Resident Evil: Afterlife'

Ooh! Deja Vue!

Because these 'new' zombies can bury through prison walls, Alice decides that she should probably get a move on. Its a good thing that Alice turned up when she did because the zombie situation has definitely taken a turn for the worse within the last few minutes since her arrival. Convenient, innit? At this point, a monster with a bag on his head carrying a giant hammer decides to make an appearance. Where has he come from?, you might ask. Paul W S Anderson doesn't have the time to tell you. Keep up!

'Its actually quite difficult for me to see with this sack on my head could somebody help me remove it? Thanks guys!'

The monster with the sack on his head and the giant hammer breaks into the prison, and starts attacking Alice. You would think, wouldn't you, that what with her being a bog-standard human and all she would find it quite difficult to fight him?. But she doesn't. Alice and her friend escape the confines of the Prison by tunnelling through the holes in the ground made by the 'new' hole-digging zombies.

Resident Evil 'Afterlife'. Sponsored by Rimmel.

Still with me? I would have thought that tunneling through a patch of ground which is full of tunnel-digging zombies would be a VERY BAD IDEA, but everybody seems ok with it, and they conveniently don't manage to run into anything which might attempt to eat them. This is actually a rather fitting manifesto for the entire film; never, at any point, do the characters run into many zombies. I run into more zombies on an average day than this lot do.

The Baddie takes the plane and flies off. How rude. His sidekick gets cut in half by the hammer-carrying monster. The Pervy man dies in the shower room, after trying to watch Alice taking a shower. That is Paul W S Anderson's way of saying 'Don't watch fictional characters taking a shower, or you will get eaten by a zombie whose design I copied from the sequel to 'Blade'.

Alice and her friend escape the tunnels unharmed, but the basketball player is dragged away, which at least means that we won't have to be party to any more of his godawful 'flirting'. The escapees head towards a large ship, which might have some survivors on it. How do they get onto the ship? Don't you worry your pretty little head about such irrelevant details. Paul W S Anderson has a vision, for Christsakes, and you, my ignorant friend, are defecating all over it.

PAUL: 'Say Milla, you don't think that I should explain the clones, the helicopter, the red metal spider or Alice's Friend's bizarre aversion to her brother, do you?'
MILLA: 'I quit'.

So Alice, Alice's friend, and Alice's friend's brother; the fat Wentworth Miller Impersonator, break into the ship. To get to the survivors, or something. Who cares, right? Sorry, did I not mention before that fat Wentworth Miller is Alice's friend's brother? Oh. Well he is. He explained this when they let him out of the cage in that prison. Rather interestingly, Alice's friend reacted pretty badly to the news that she was his sister. Like maybe she didn't believe him. Or maybe that she was just ashamed to be related to someone so hefty. Weight is a class issue, Wentworth, did nobody ever expain that to you?

Despite how it looks, Wentworth Miller does not play the role of 'Gay Sailor' in this movie

Perhaps fat Wentworth Miller's sister is reluctant to accept her sibing because he is actually a baddie, and is tricking them all to make them trust him? Well, 'no', actually. Oh. So what was the point of making Alice's friend react badly to the news that fat Wentworth Miller, her long-lost brother, is one of only ten people who have made it through the zombie virus apocalypse, then? And as an explanation, Paul W S
Anderson has this to say: 'Let it go! Fucktards!'

I tell you who else has died - that muscly lad with the New Jersey accent. I can't remember how. I think maybe that the baddie shoots him in the head. Yes, that's right. I mean, this is a zombie film, so for goodness sake, lets make sure that nobody in it actually gets eaten by a zombie, shall we? On the ship, fat Wentworth Miller, Alice, and Alice's friend agree that the ship is, in fact, a trap. A trap laid out for them by the Umbrella Corporation. Perhaps they should leave, then. Y'know, rather than venture deeper into the ship and actually get caught in the trap? No? Ok.

Yup! Its definitely a fucking trap! Lets go and investigate, shall we?

Alice and her inconsistently-characterised friends wander into the trap that they have established IS A TRAP. And they find another friend. But don't worry about this other friend, because they don't really do anything much in this film, except wander around in the background wearing white pajamas. In fact, everyone on this ship wears white pajamas. Odd, no? Anyhoo, Alice follows a trail of blood, which will, no doubt, lead her and her rescued friends to a safe exit, right? Actually, it leads her and her friends to certain death. A trail of blood. Who would have thought it?

The nature trail had been clearly marked out by the National Hiking Association

Woo! Pajama Party! Oh shit - have I inadvertently joined a cult?

At the end of the trail of blood sits the Pilot on a throne. Thats right, a fucking throne. Ideas above his station, that one. The Pilot has red eye, presumably from the overnight flight that he took to get to the ship in time for Alice's arrival. The Pilot takes off his sunglasses, and then watches Alice fight some dogs from 'Blade 2'. The fact that she is now nothing but a normal human does not in any way interfere with her ability to destroy the Pilot. Or the dogs. I had hoped that the Pilot might morph into some kind of very cool uber-monster, but Paul W S Anderson does not seem to agree with me, and prefers the pilot to just have red-eye from the flight. And a few snakes in his mouth. Or several cocks in his mouth, it was difficult to tell.

And the moral of the story is 'Don't take the red-eye flight just because its cheaper you fucking miser'

Then Alice gets stabbed in the arm by a knife which has the Pilot's blood on it. Is that relevant to the plot? Nope. Maybe it will be in Paul W S Anderson's next film: 'Resident Evil 5: Zombies which sparkle like Edward Cullen does in Twilight'. I shall have to wait and see. Before the film ends, the flirtatious homosexual basketball player turns up again in a sewer. Alive, and presumably drenched in faecal matter. What was the point of him turning up again?, you might well ask. Paul W S Anderson says 'Sssh!'.

To summarize:

• Umbrella still appears hold a candle for 'mole's-den style' underground headquarters.
• It has not occurred to Paul W S Anderson that living in a post-apocalyptic universe might encourage women to 'let themselves go a bit'.
• Paul W S Anderson prefers to leave his films 'open to interpretation' rather than explain every silly little detail.
• Paul W S Anderson is not interested in creating new and exciting movie monsters when he can just plagiarise movie monsters from other successful franchises.
• Umbrella shareholders know a good investment when they see one.