Review: Resident Evil Afterlife

Resident Evil: Afterlife is the fourth installment in the film series inspired by the Capcom survival-horror video game series.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the Umbrella Corporation was doing research on viral weapons. The T-virus got out, and killed nearly every living thing on the planet. But they didn't stay dead - the turned into mindless, hungry zombies.

The film starts out with Alice (Milla Jovovich) and an army of clones attacking the Umbrella Corporation facility in Tokyo. Victory doesn't come without a cost. Evil Umbrella exec Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) wipes out the clones (along with the Tokyo facility) and injects Alice with a retrovirus that takes away all of her superpowers.

Alice sets out for Alaska to search for Arcadia, a supposed safe haven for the world's uninfected humans. When she gets there, all Alice finds is a field full of deserted planes and helicopters. And Claire Redfield (Ali Larter), who attacks her while under the control of some kind of mechanical spider-like device.

Alice removes the device, only to find Claire has lost her memory. They fly down the coast, eventually reaching a burned-out Los Angeles. There, they find another band of survivors that holed up in a prison. We get more zombie battles, a family reunion and some answers about what happened to Arcadia along the way.

But I don't think anybody is really going to watch Resident Evil: Afterlife to focus on the plot details. Watching this film is like watching a really skilled player go through a video game with life-like graphics.

Directory Paul W.S. Anderson understands this and focuses on crafting interesting fight scenes. He succeeds fairly well, though I think he overused the bullet time gimmick. Alice and Claire's fight with the Axeman in the prison shower room was my favorites sequence in the film, but the opening battle in Tokyo was fun too.

The decision to make this installment of the series in 3-D was probably just made to increase the box office totals. (It's working.) I think 2-D would have worked just as well for most of the film's sequences, but at least 3-D wasn't really used to hurl zombie parts into the audience.

If you've seen the other Resident Evil films and enjoyed them, you should definitely go see Afterlife. If you didn't like them or you've never had any desire to see them, nothing about Afterlife will change your opinion.

I'm hoping Afterlife does well enough at the box office to earn another sequel - I want to see how Alice and her band will escape the cliffhanger at the end of this film.

Best, Lloyd Coming To Big Apple Comic Con

Big Apple Comic Con is coming up in a couple more weeks, but it wasn't really on my radar. They had some cool guests like Mary McDonnell and Walter Koenig, but I'd already planned to go to New York Anime Festival in October.

Then I saw the announcement that Ahmed Best would be joining Jake Lloyd at the Big Apple show. Best, who portrayed Jar-Jar Binks in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, has not done many public appearances since Episode I came out. I think this is the first time he's ever done one on the East Coast.

Jar-Jar is probably the most reviled character in Star Wars history, but for that reason alone I would want to meet Best. Besides, I already have autographs from most of the other principal Star Wars cast members who appear on the convention circuit. There's no way I could pass up the chance to go see Best when he's coming to a con less than an hour from my home.

Photo courtesy Travelin' Librarian via Flickr

Caprica to return in October

SyFy will begin to air the second half of the first season of Caprica on Oct. 5.

This is great news, because it will give the show a chance to find new viewers before the network has to make a decision on Caprica's future when the actors' current contracts expire in November.

Here's a clip from the first new episode, Unvanquished.