by Ken San Nicolas

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Genre: Action

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Wentworth Miller

The legendary zombie video game series is back with its 4th motion picture installment: "Resident Evil: Afterlife". This time, it is 3D. Unfortunately, neither the advancements of 3D nor the abundance of CG in the film can save "RE: Afterlife" from its horrible transitions, shallow script, poor acting and unfulfilling premise.

Our film starts off with Alice (Milla Jovovich) who, after battling the Umbrella Corporation, makes her way to Alaska in search of the human refugee camp known as Arcadia. On arrival, she finds her friend Clare Redfield (Ali Larter) but no other sign of human life. Together the two make their trek down the west coast in search of Arcadia or any human survivors of the zombie outbreak.

If you've followed along with the series and have seen the other three movies, this won't seem that confusing. However, if "Afterlife" is your introduction into the series, none of this film will make sense. If you need a brief synopsis of the film, here you go: company makes zombies, zombies take over the world, two hot women decide to fight the zombies, said ladies meet up with other humans, fight more zombies, something about a ship, big zombie guy with hammer, find more humans, kill zombies, movie ends, credit shows cast member that never appeared, secret scene, no one sees it because theater is empty.

That, is "Afterlife" in a nutshell. Think a typical George Romero zombie flick with better budget but less content. The 3D elements are interesting but are more of a novelty at best. The fight scenes are ridiculous, and the zombies do not really instill fear into the viewer. The speed by which the cast goes through killing the zombies leads me to think that, if they really wanted to get out of their predicament, they should just shoot their way through the front door.

The dialogue and acting is poor. I'm a pretty big fan of Milla Jovovich, although many criticize her lack of emotional depth. "Afterlife" isn't doing her any favors in that department. The film is so dull in its script its hard to stay awake. (Especially with those comfy seats at the Agana Tango Theatres!)

If "Afterlife" stayed true to at least the video game canon, then I'd excuse the series for just being a poor transition into film. Unfortunately, none of what happens in the film reflects what happens in any of the games. The only relationship are the names and some of the zombies that appear (even though said zombies may be geographically incorrect). It almost feels as if the series was made to leech off of the name of a perfectly ground-breaking video game franchise. That is too bad. Let's hope that "Resident Evil: Afterlife" will truly be the end of this film franchise.

0 out of 5 stars.