Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) **1/2 out of *****

Director/Writer:  Paul W.S. Anderson
Cast:  Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Wentworth Miller, Shawn Roberts

The Resident Evil series continues to be a sore subject for someone such as myself, adoring the game franchise as I do.  No game to film translation has ever been critically successful or appeasing to the overall fan base, but RE has hit harder and struck deeper with me because of its nostalgic quality.  In the defense of the film makers though, I may just be the first fan of the games to admit that the story has always been simple and convoluted, only meant as interactive entertainment, with non-engaging, cliched story mechanics and/or characters that tend to take a back seat to the action, tension, and survival horror elements.
Alice (Milla Jovovich), after destroying an Umbrella facility in Tokyo, decides to head to a small town in Alaska to regroup with a band of survivors, who fled for safety after the events that transpired in Las Vegas in the previous installment.  She is discouraged and disappointed to find that only a disoriented Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) is present, struck with severe memory loss thus unable to recall what happened to the others.  In a hope to find salvation and their friends, the two head to Los Angeles where they team together with a band of refugees in a fortified prison, and fight not only for survival, but also for answers.
In addition to the only characters in this film from an actual Resident Evil game, Claire Redfield and Albert Wesker, we're later introduced to Claire's brother Chris, played by Wentworth Miller ("Prison Break"), a flat and underdeveloped character shoveled into the story by the writer/director in a lazy attempt to make the plot relevant to the RE universe.   Little nods to the gaming franchise are nice, but fall flat when only thrown in without explanation.  You can't toss in a villain from Resident Evil 5, give no back story or logic as to his appearance, and expect it to come off as cohesive.  It doesn't make sense, and fails to make the end product more authentic, which I assume is the intended reasoning behind these reference choices.
In addition to being nonsensical, the dialogue is often laughable (a charm the games possessed that's only cringe worthy here) and there is a lack of any real sense of immediate danger pertaining to the main players.
The film does have its moments though.  The soundtrack can be pretty kick ass, the action sequences (though ripped directly from "The Matrix") are engaging, and beautiful woman slaughtering hordes of the undead, will never, ever get old to me.  To be honest, this may be my favorite RE film to date (that's not saying much), and though it's far from a true to form Resident Evil experience, I have a feeling this is as good as it's ever going to get.