Whether or not you are going to enjoy Resident Evil: Afterlife will probably be decided in the first five minutes on the arrival of Shawn Roberts as the evil Wesker. Roberts gives a performance that, depending on how many hours you have spent wielding a shotgun at Capcom zombies, you will either find ludicrous or inspired. Dressed in black suit, shades and with the curious look of a waxwork Val Kilmer, the man is practically pixelated, perfectly capturing the stilted, portentous delivery of the notoriously awful voice-acting of the games. Now I’m sensible enough to know that this is the opposite of what one should be looking for in a motion picture but as a huge fan of the games, I found it irresistible.
Resident Evil: Afterlife is undoubtedly the closest the franchise has gotten to the feel of the game. So much so in fact that I am actually quite reluctant to describe it as a film at all; really it feels more like a collection of cut scenes with only the flimsiest of narratives thrown in to hold them together as Milla Jovovich once again picks up the shotgun to take down the evil Umbrella corporation and search for other survivors.
This is of course all incidental to the spectacle and it must be said that aside from director Paul W.S Anderson’s compulsion to use as much slow motion and bullet time as is humanly possible, Afterlife is quite a handsome affair. There is a pleasing high gloss, hyper-real glow to both the environments and the actors that works particularly well with the 3D effects which are among the best I’ve seen of this new generation.
I have split the rating for Afterlife straight down the middle because I am well aware that while old gamers like myself will have a lot of affection for it, the casual viewer may well find it flimsy, silly and a waste of a good ten euro note. Let’s just say unless you know how many shotgun shells it takes to dispose of those infected dobermans, this probably isn’t the film for you.