Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Resident Evil: Afterlife

The Resident Evil movies have been successively worse since the original but not at a factor that mimics most franchises that get a 3rd sequel by which time more often than not Generic Movie 4 has none of the original cast and is little but a poor "homage" to the original.

We've come from the perfect masterpiece of the original *****+ rated Resident Evil to a still impressive ****1/2 2nd sequel Resident Evil: Extinction losing literally only one whole star on the way and that rarely happens in Hollywood. But what of number 4? Yes the 3rd sequel is often the "turd sequel", Batman & Robin, Superman 4, Lethal Weapon 4, Highlander 4 and many more that have been relegated to Direct to DVD oblivion and I'd probably call turd on Resident Evil: Afterlife and brand it as the most nonsensical piece of plot-hole filled garbage I've seen in the cinema this year - except this is crap filmed in James Cameron's version of 3D!

Afterlife is no Avatar, the canvas moves from white and clinical to bleak and urban and back again, but it feals as real as Avatar although I doubt that there'll be cults of people who'd desire to live in this world of Paul W.S. Anderson's creation [even if multiple Milla Jovovich's were made "available" to you]. While the entire plot is complete rubbish that makes no sense whatsoever and has more holes than the zombies, this movie must be rated for it's "proper" use of the Fusion Camera System 3D technology pioneered by James Cameron. Edged weapons, shuriken, bullets and lots of blood spatters are sent hurtling towards the screen and almost onto your lap. I almost headbutted the person next to me while instinctively avoiding the opening volley of fire as a result of my elite special forces training. This is truly one of the most marvelous visceral technical achievements known to mankind. A pity the movie was shit. The movie has made upwards of $205m on a budget of $60m ensuring that it's cliffhanger ending will mostcertainly be continued.

Final Verdict: Avatar may be the 3D testbed for stunning visuals and I'll probably own that movie once I have my own 3D setup, but Resident Evil: Afterlife will be my first 3D Blu-Ray purchase because I will want to relive the first time I saw real bullets come toward me and convince me I've been shot, yet induce no physical pain or result in yet another Purple Heart presentation. One of the wost movies of the year - fantastic fun!

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****

1 comment:

Alice Jackson said...

While the movie was very pretty, they were trying to incorporate / rip-off Resident Evil 5 at every other scene, including making the zombies turn into Majini. My big gripe was that, for the non-gamers who saw it, there was no back-story to the shifts. Why are the zombies like this? What's this mind-control devise? Who's that big guy with the giant ax? Why is Jill blonde at the end? And when it comes to the actual gamers, only a little more than half read the RE5 files to be able to answer all those questions. Now add to the fact that RE4 changed the zombies to Ganados, and a lot of people were left scratching there heads.