Saturday, May 15, 2021

Hits & Misses: Resident Evil Afterlife



Real Talk: Super Duper Mega Ultra Alice: Afterlife

Miss: Not a very good sign when a single movie has multiple producers.

Miss: *One of the Alice clones starts slicing up armed Umbrella guards.* As awesome this scene is, she could've use her telekinesis on these guys. Which she does when more guards showed up and are about to shoot her. Making that early slice and dice scene completely needless when you think about; unlike Paul Anderson who is the film series writer.

Miss: In fact, all of the Alice clones have telekinesis. So why not just have them mind blast the place instead of wasting the movie's runtime with pointless gunfights? This is what happens when you nerfed your superpowered character(s) instead of having them fight tougher enemies.

Miss: *Wesker makes his escape by tiltrotor plane as he blows up the underground facility. Killing what's left of the Alice clones.* And just like that all that build up with the Alice clones is swept under the rug after 14 minutes in. Paul Anderson must have the worst attention span with his writing.

Hit: Alice Ass Shot

Real Talk: Wesker injects the real Alice with a serum that renders her a normal human. Unfortunately this doesn't cure Alice of the plot convenience/contrivance disease she got from the script. 

Miss: *Alice magically walks away from a tiltrotor plane crash with next to no injuries.* Uh no, Alice's T-Virus powers are gone now. She should be pulverized meat after this, how the hell did Alice just walked away from a crash like she's Wile E Coyote? Alice got pretty fucked up after that helicopter crash in RE Apocalypse only to be revived by Umbrella scientists. But in this movie she just survives another crash without a scratch because fucking how? 

Miss: OK am I missing something here, wasn't the earth a barren wasteland one movie ago? Why are there now trees, lakes, snow and ice caps all of a sudden? Did Paul Anderson just forgot about the Discount Arrakis subplot somehow? Was he trying to retcon that but couldn't figure out how? Guess I'll just chalk it up to this film series biggest weakness #4. Whenever a plot point is established in the previous movie is just completely forgotten in the next movie.   

Miss: Movie, I know that Claire's surviving convoy took a chopper to Alaska. I didn't need the flashback to remind me.

Hit: *Alice gets a surprise sucker punch from Claire.* I really got nothing here, just felt like mentioning it.

Miss: Oh no, Claire now suffers the dreaded plot convenience amnesia.

Miss: Poor Kim Coates was dragged into this garbage.

Hit: Also Kim Coates....

Miss: *Luther introduces himself to Claire only to rudely ignore him.* Now having plot convenience amnesia is horrible and all but that's no excuse of being a total bitch. Especially to someone who just saved your life.

Real Talk: *Crystal introduces herself to Alice until Bennet stops her.* This guy must've read the script, he knows this woman is nothing but a redshirt.

Real Talk: So this supposed safe haven in Alaska is a tanker ship, OK fair enough. But why wasn't it ever mention in the last movie? That would've nice to mention that important information, don't you think?

Miss: And of course Claire starts remembering bits and pieces about Arcadia but only when the plot deems it necessary. And by necessary I mean convenient.  

Real Talk: *Movie cuts to a zombie moving through the underground.* So the zombies are Discount Graboids now? OK....stupid but OK....

Miss: Poor Wentworth Miller was dragged into this garbage.

Hit: Also Wentworth Miller...

Real Talk: Also, also HA HA I see what you did here! Chris Redfield's in a jail cell like in RE 1 and the actor playing him is from the show Prison Break. Ooooh you're so cleaver, Anderson...except not really.

Miss: So these Graboid zombies borrowed their way into the prison which I'm assuming was at night but decided to wait until the next day to attack the survivors. 

Miss: And here's the pay off to Claire's plot convenience amnesia. Chris calls out to her when he's let out of his cell but oh no Claire doesn't remember him. The movie has brought these two together just to throw in some needless drama bullshit.

Real Talk: *After Alice, Chris and Crystal make it to the basement of the prison, a zombie jumps out of the water, grabs Crystal, pulls her back in and kills her.* It's a good thing Redshirt Crystal came along because otherwise the movie would've kill off Chris. God forbid if they have to kill off Alice, I mean what are the odds of that happening?

Miss: Alice could've toss the explosive on top of the elevator and then got inside with the others before the elevator goes down. But instead she rips off a scene from Die Hard by tying herself to a cable and then goes swinging off the roof like she's fucking Spider-Man. At least in Die Hard John McClaine was in a hurry to get off the roof before it gets blown up. Not to mention an attack chopper that's gunning for him. There was no rhyme or reason for Alice staying on the rooftop just to do this. At this point this is just Paul Anderson mentally fapping in his scripts on how awesome Alice (or his wife) is. Even though it makes no goddamn sense within the plot. 

Miss: *Alice's two double-barreled shotguns can fire quarters, apparently.* Now I'm no gun/ballistics expert but how can a double-barreled shotgun fire impractical projectiles like quarters? It be one thing if Alice gathered these quarters and melted them into actual ammo (which would make more sense) but that's not even the case. At least the early RE games have a crafting system to make different types of ammo. But I guess she just stuffs these quarters in the barrels with shit tons of gunpower and with the power of plot convenience these guns can still fire without jamming or exploding in her hands.   

Miss: Also she just came from the prison armory where there's plenty of actual shotgun rounds for Alice to use but I guess it wouldn't be as awesome as using impractical projectiles as ammo.

Hit: *Claire confronts the Executioner creature after Alice is knocked out. Then Claire eventually brings down the Executioner with a shotgun.* You see that Paul, was it so hard to have RE characters have their action moments without being out played by Alice?   

Hit: Also nice superhero landing by Claire.

Miss: But of course the scene gets ruined by having Claire conveniently forget how to duck when the Executioner throws his giant axe at her. Having Alice to move her out the way and gets the kill shot on the Executioner. Because god forbid if an RE character have their moments more than Alice.     

Miss: *Upon arriving to Arcadia, Claire sees the Umbrella logo then remembers of her convoy being taken by Umbrella guards. Telling Alice and Chris that Arcadia's a trap.* So it's revealed that the whole thing about "Alaska being safe" was complete bullshit. Now should I be surprised by that, because I'm not. Considering how RE Extinction was being so vague with Alaska being isolated from the infection in the first place. 

Real Talk: Also I bet Alice feels like a complete dumbass for sending survivors to Alaska based on fucking nothing but flimsy information.

Miss: Again Alice's powers are gone, why she is getting random flashes when she touches a blood covered stasis pod?

Miss: When Alice, Chris and Claire entered this storage room it's clean as a whistle. But after Claire releases all the stasis pods there's now this random blood trail to the next room. Where did the blood trail come from? Why's there a blood trail just appeared from nowhere when it wasn't before literally a few minutes ago? Did someone or something made this trail after leaving the pod, if so how did Alice and the others not seen what the hell it was?

Real Talk: Alice after finding the still Wesker in another room: "Why am I not surprise?" It's because you read the script. 

Real Talk: The T-Virus revived Wesker but it's trying to take control of his body. So he resorts to ingest fresh human DNA in order to maintain control. But since Alice once bonded with the T-Virus, ingesting her will make his control more permanent. So basically he's Discount Alex Mercer.     

Miss: Wesker talking to Alice: "You were the only who successfully bonded with the T-Virus. Your DNA is stronger than the others." Still doesn't give a detailed explanation but sure, whatever helps Paul Anderson not to think too much in the script. 

Miss: Wesker talking to Chris and Claire: "Well isn't this one big family reunion. Chris and Claire Redfield, you have really become quite an inconvenience for me." They have...since when, between movies?  As far as I know in THIS movie this is first time Wesker has met these two and vice versa. How exactly were they an inconvenience? Claire was leading a convoy back in RE Extinction and Chris was just locked in a jail cell. I'm just really confused by that line. 

Miss: Alice talking to Wesker: "I told I'd be bringing a few friends." Uh Alice you already did, remember your personal clone army whom are all dead now? Chris and Claire are more like your acquaintances.....no that's too strong. Colleagues....no that's not it either...... Um....disposable meat shields yeah that's it.  

Hit: Wesker throws his sunglasses at Chris.

Hit: Chris fighting Wesker is the closest thing to a Resident Evil live action you're gonna get from this movie.

Hit: *Chris and Claire shooting the shit out of Wesker.* OK, that's awesome.

Miss: *Wesker escapes by tiltrotor plane only to blown himself up when a bomb was placed on the tiltrotor plane.* So am I suppose to believe that Alice planted the bomb onboard before Wesker escape? If so when did she do this while not being notice by anyone? 

Hit: Jill Valentine Ass Shot

Hit: Jill Valentine Cleavage  

Real Talk: I'm sure the next movie will explain where the hell Jill has been since RE Apocalypse but I'm not holding my breath on that.

BONUS ROUND:

Miss: Most of the scenes would've gone a lot faster without the slow motion shots. And also pro tip, not every scene in an action film needs slow motion shots.

Real Talk: If Wesker needed Alice to control the T-Virus inside him, couldn't he just make some Alice clones? 

Miss: *Redshirt Kim Yong get sliced in two from behind by the Executioner.* Now this big motherfucker managed to sneak up on someone so easily?

Miss: You can give these redshirt characters backstory all you want, it doesn't stop them from becoming Alice's meat shields.

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