Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

After the ice/snow thawed this past Saturday, I was able to walk to my local Blockbuster and exchange my mailed movies for new ones. I picked up Resident Evil: Afterlife thinking it would be a decent choice. I've seen all the movies of the series and with each one I'm a little confused, a little bored, a little miffed and a little 'eh.'

It's been a while since I saw the last one (Extinction, was it?) so a few flashbacks in this one were semi-helpful in jogging a little bit of memory. The start of the movie was confusing to me. First, when did Japan become the new hub of the Umbrella corporation? Second, there are a jillion Japanese walking around this lone Japanese girl who is/seems normal. I figured what was coming and they didn't disappoint. The girl suddenly turns weird, dead, or whatever and starts chomping on a randomly chosen guy. They camera view pulls out from street level to sky level to space level showing the rate of infection which then leads to Alice (Jovovich) to search for survivors while bringing down Umbrella corporation.

So, here are my questions:

• How did this girl (Japanese one) get infected and how did she not die first then turn to zombie girl?
• When did Alice learn to replicate herself and how did this become a "power" of the T-virus? I don't recall her learning some new abilities from any of the movies other than being a badass ninja marksman.
• Where/how did the axe-wielding-hooded guy come from and what really was the purpose of his 5 minutes of screen time? How does he see through his burlap baggy? How was he smart enough to make his axe-anvil weapon but he couldn't kick Claire's ass? How did he find much less sneak into the showers without being seen, heard or asking for directions in that big ass jailhouse?
• How did Alice keep the quarters from falling out of the shotguns when the barrel was pointed down?
• Why didn't Claire and/or Alice somehow get naked in the shower fight with axe-wielder (or at ANY time)? It's not like there are lot of minor boys watching this movie since it veers too far from the game and hardcore gamers will not watch just for that fact. But it's also not like these boys haven't seen more or worse. All horror-type movies have female nudity at least in the top three requirements of being a horror movie.
• Why did Chris Redfield have to talk like Christian Bale's Batman?
• Where did the octopus-like mouths, tongues, or heads come from? Another side effect of the T-virus? Were these people injected by Umbrella or was this a natural mutation/reaction to the virus when they were bitten?
• Why did they make the Wesker guy have the personality and dress of Terminator? I mean the sunglasses, really?
• If Alice was made human by Wesker, how did she retain her badass-ness? I thought that was a bi-product of the T-virus.
• If Alice is indeed human and she gets bitten by the undead aka infected, would it just react with her body like it did originally?
• Before Alice was made "human," why did she run from the zombies because I thought she is (was) technically one of them?
• How does Umbrella have so many uninfected humans to fly the helicopters in the end? How many facilities do they have that weren't blown up by Alice?
• I hate endings like this movie had. I know it leaves it open for more sequels but when will/does it end?

I guess that's enough ranting. In the end, I thought the movie was watchable. I would not have paid to watch it at a movie theater unless it was at the $1 movie or better yet, 50-cent day. I was slightly excited and aroused at seeing Milla and Ali again but was disappointed in the lack of gratuitous bare skin shots aka boob shots of the two. I mean not even a shot of Ali in her white, wet t-shirt when fighting the axe guy. Bummer. The story line was fairly weak and barely existent but I kept watching hoping for more, for something. Maybe I was looking for an explanation and then closure. I didn't get it and I don't think anyone will with this movie. Let's sew this series up in the next and final movie or just leave it as it is. I can't handle another quickly thrown together senseless continuation...okay, I would still watch it but reluctantly and frustratedly.

That's my opinion. I liked the movie to an extent but it didn't have the same intenseness, suspense and horror as the first, second or how many ever there are. Try to borrow a friend's copy or watch instantly on your Netflix account that way you don't waste a DVD mailing.