Paul W.S. Anderson puts the “hack” back in “hack-n-slash” with the fifth installment in a franchise that can only be described as a cinematic train wreck; there’s enough senselessness and gore to keep you from looking away, but you’re immediately disgusted with yourself afterward.
Following the events of Resident Evil: Afterlife, our hero Alice (played by Milla Jovovich, who is married to the director AS WELL as the franchise) finds herself in an underwater training facility in the Arctic after being captured by the Umbrella Corporation. Freed, she learns that Ada Wong and Albert Wesker (a bad guy who died in the last movie) now want to help her escape because he sees her as the savior of humanity (even though an army of her clones were no match for the Umbrella Corporation in the last movie). Desperate to keep her in the franchise, Wesker sends a search-and-rescue crew to take Alice and Ada back to the surface. Trapped in the underwater facility, the two must fight off hordes of zombies, bio-organic weapons and armed security personnel trying to kill them, all with a race against the clock to get to the rendezvous point.
This movie . . . where do I begin? It’s like an endurance run of nonsense. First of all, the movie acknowledges that it jumped the shark by recapping the forgettable events of the last movies. It also makes a really cheap plea for attention by trying to bring back your “favorite” characters, even though their involvement in the stories prior is as dead as the zombies being fought. Also, how is this evil company still functioning even though the world’s ended? And WHY for that matter? The world’s ended. What do they have to gain by spending billions of dollars on zombies and clones? And how in the hell are they generating any manner of profit from ANY of this, or have any workers left? The world just ended. Also, at what point were the Uroboros creatures introduced into this franchise?
The fight scenes really aren’t all that spectacular. The special effects aren’t all that stunning. The acting is what you’d expect. So what does this movie really have to offer? Not really a whole lot of anything. Even hardcore fans of the decade-spanning game series are displeased with the movie knockoff. So how are these movies still making money?
My advice: treat the movie like the T-Virus, and quarantine yourself. If any of your friends try to drag you along, treat them as you would a zombie.
