Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

Zombos Says: Fair (but only because I like Milla Javovich)

Watching the lissom Alice (Milla Jovovich) adroitly manhandle automatic weapons only goes so far to entertain in this unending series of flying bullets, flying kickassery, and flailing plotlines, padded with relentless undead and increasingly inane T-Virus mutations. Paul W. S. Anderson’s unending slow-motion, freeze-frame interruptions to the CGI action are almost as annoying as the numb-thumping soundtrack that rocks on, oblivious to its purpose. Resident Evil: Afterlife is as glossy as a MySpace page and as dramatically rendered.

An NRA supporter’s dream–mine, too– of seeing an army of tightly-clad Alice clones rapid-firing their way through the evil minions of the Umbrella Corporation, and countless slobbering undead, lasts only as long as the CGI budget allows. After that it’s up to the original Alice to fly around in her two-seater plane looking for survivors.

An impossible crash landing on the roof of a maximum security prison introduces a few more characters for us to play with. Oh, sorry, this isn’t the interactive game, just the uninvolving movie: I keep forgetting. There is the sports star (Boris Kodjoe), the expendables for the monster attack scenes, the feisty and determined Claire (Ali Larter), the nasty producer who you know is going to screw everyone because he just wants to go home (Kim Coates), and the mysterious military guy they’ve locked up (Wentworth Miller).

With that amazing kind of luck that only happens in bad scripts and Resident Evil movies, an arsenal of heavy-duty firepower has been left behind by the army, but access to it is submerged under the water that’s now flooding the lower levels of the prison. I won’t spoil your fun–this movie does its best to do that already–but my favorite slacker hack of bad scripting, the air vent big enough to crawl or drive through, comes to the rescue as T-Virus nasties begin piling up.

The biggest nasty wears a sack over his head and wields a meat tenderizer and axe combo that is as big as that air vent I mentioned. No explanation is given–and I suppose none is really expected at this point–for this nine-foot mutant showing up at the prison gates. He winds up in the shower with Alice and Claire (but not like that). Anderson’s action-interruptus slow-motion kills the excitement anyway.

The Umbrella Corporation’s evil mastermind (Shawn Roberts)–he wears black and tauntingly slicks his hair back–shows up for the finale. He’s ingested some T-Virus himself and tries to put the bite on Alice. More action-interruptus ensues.

You may have noticed I haven’t mentioned the 3D. That’s because there is nothing to say about it. Its use in this movie is as pointless as everything else.