Ten years ago, Paul WS Anderson made a decent little sci-fi flick in which an ass-kicking Alice (Milla Jovovich) was dropped into the universe of Capcom’s video game.
She wore tight clothes, beat the bejaysus out of living and dead guys, did some flips, kicked some kicks, made some friends, lost some friends, fought the cinematic equivalent of a level boss, and then had the sequel-friendly realisation more baddies were coming.
The formula became the prototype, as one follow-up came after another.
This time, the tagline doesn’t even make sense. Though it declares ‘Evil Goes Global’, the entire film actually takes place in a giant underwater facility in Russia, where Alice has to fight through several simulations of zombie-infected cities and landscapes.
There are cheap and absurd plot devices; the film shoehorns in needless characters from the video games, as well as bringing back major players from previous instalments.
Michelle Rodriguez, Oded Fehr and Colin Salmon return thanks to some nifty cloning. The action also feels like a copied-and-pasted series of mind-numbingly repetitive explosions, loud yells and badly edited fights.
The joyless cast moves trance-like through the film. Their wooden performances are rendered even more excruciating by the cliché-ridden script. A sample: “Made a simulation of New York, sold it to the Russians.” “Made a simulation of Moscow, sold it to the Americans.” “Made a simulation of Tokyo, sold it to the Chinese.”