Resident Evil: Afterlife
When a film is based on a video game you know that studios are usually looking to cashout on the game’s hordes of fans who have exhausted every angle the game has got and now want to see their hero (or heroine as the case may be) brought to celluloid life.
That is the normal route. Occasionally, along the way, you happen to find a star who makes the central character their own, bringing brooding depths to lines meant to act only as fillers before the on-screen action kicks into the next game level and a writer/director who dares to tangle with the sanctity of fandom beliefs and what you get is Resident Evil.
The 2002 original broke the mould of expectation and catapulted Milla Jovovich, as the iconic, kick-ass Alice, into global stardom. Every other instalment to the saga, since, has shared the pedigree of the original which means that when it comes to Resident Evil: Afterlife you can be certain that cinemagoers will like it and critics will hate it.
The former love familiarity, fresh action and the comfort that only a genre movie can give which are, also, the reasons the latter dislike.
Resident Evil: Afterlife is like a videogame on testosterone. It gives you the thrills you have long been waiting for, gets you to feel the gut-reaction a good action movie always contains and ends on a cliffhanger which only leaves you begging for more.
Worth your pop-corn money? You bet! But hey, remember it is a fest for the eyes based on a thinly veiled, linear parable about corporate greed and evil which only works if you remember the entire series. So if you also want a work out for the mind I suggest you see the whole series.
