The fourth installment in the Resident Evil franchise is Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), and I may be running out of ideas as to how to describe these films. Then again, the same thing can be said of the people who made them. With the video games on which they are based, it is less of an issue if you have sameness from title to title because you do not buy them for their stories. Instead, you are hoping there will be better graphics or improvements in the way they are played. As a Catholic, I am all about improving oneself, but doing so has a point. With this series of films, it is just about putting their star, Milla Jovovich, into as many action sequences as possible. At the same time, if I can give these movies some grace, it is that they are excellent opportunities to do other things, like cook dinner. Is that another bullet-filled, physics-defying sequence that goes on for way too long? Let me see if my salmon is finished in the oven. In other words, there are much better things to do than watch this flick, but let me tell you about it anyway.

Telling you about Resident Evil: Afterlife begins in Tokyo, where Alice (Milla Jovovich) makes good on her previous threat to Umbrella by bringing along an entire army of her clones to assault the corporation’s underground headquarters. The duplicates tear through Umbrella personnel while Chairman Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) attempts to escape. Albert destroys the facility, killing the clones, but discovers that the original Alice has stowed away aboard his aircraft. Before she can kill him, he injects her with an antivirus that neutralizes the T-virus in her body and removes her superhuman abilities. Albert, who has deliberately infected himself and acquired powers of his own, prepares to kill her, but the pilotless aircraft crashes into the mountains. Somehow, Alice manages to survive, so what was all that about a lack of superpowers? Six months later, Alice is alive and flying to Alaska in search of Arcadia, the supposedly infection-free refuge mentioned in the previous film. Instead, she finds abandoned aircraft and no community. Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) suddenly attacks her while wearing a strange Umbrella device on her chest. Alice removes it, but Claire has lost her memory. The two fly south and discover survivors waving from the roof of a Los Angeles prison surrounded by thousands of zombies. Alice makes a rather improbable rooftop landing and meets Luther West (Boris Kodjoe), a former professional basketball player who leads the group, along with film producer Bennett Sinclair (Kim Coates), his assistant Kim Yong (Norman Yeung), Angel Ortiz (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), Crystal Waters (Kacey Barnfield), and Wendell (Fulvio Cecere). They explain that Arcadia is actually a cargo ship offshore that had been broadcasting promises of safety before suddenly going silent. The prison also contains one remaining inmate, Chris Redfield (Wentworth Miller), who insists he was a soldier mistakenly locked up during the outbreak and knows a way out. Nobody trusts him enough to open his cell, claiming he is a killer. That changes when zombies begin entering through tunnels they have dug beneath the prison and a gigantic axe-wielding creature starts battering down the front gate. Chris is released and recognizes Claire as his sister, although her damaged memory prevents her from recognizing him. He proposes escaping in an armored vehicle stored inside the prison, only for the survivors to discover that its engine has been removed. Bennett responds to this setback in a distinctly uncharitable manner by murdering Angel and stealing Alice’s small airplane for himself. With the gate failing, everyone else prepares to escape through the tunnels. Crystal is killed while helping Alice and Chris retrieve weapons, and the enormous Axeman finally breaks into the prison. Kim is killed by the creature, while Alice and Claire fight it in the shower room. The remaining survivors descend into the tunnels, where Luther is dragged away by the undead and presumed dead. Alice, Claire, and Chris reach the coast and make their way aboard Arcadia. The ship appears deserted, but its equipment is operational, and records reveal that Umbrella has used the promise of sanctuary to collect thousands of survivors as human test subjects. Claire’s memory returns enough for her to remember Umbrella attacking her convoy in Alaska and fitting its members with the same controlling device she had been wearing. The three begin releasing the prisoners, among them K-Mart (Spencer Locke), Claire’s companion from the last installment. Alice then follows a trail of blood deeper into the ship and discovers that Albert survived the crash. The T-virus has given him extraordinary regenerative powers but is now fighting him for control of his body. His solution is to consume fresh human deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and he believes Alice’s unique compatibility with the virus makes her the ideal meal. Whatever else can be said about Catholic fasting disciplines, they have never included eating other people to improve one’s genetic stability. Bennett, having reached Arcadia before the others, has allied himself with Albert. Chris and Claire join Alice, but Albert’s enhanced speed allows him to overpower the siblings and imprison them while Alice battles Bennett and mutated dogs. K-Mart recovers sufficiently to help Alice, who shoots Albert repeatedly before freeing Chris and Claire. They lock Bennett in with Albert’s apparently dead body, only for the Umbrella chairman to regenerate and make a meal of his newest ally. Albert escapes aboard an aircraft and activates a bomb intended to destroy Arcadia, but Alice has anticipated him and placed the explosive aboard his own craft. It detonates over the ocean, although a parachuting figure suggests that Albert has once again survived. Alice decides to make Arcadia into the genuine sanctuary its broadcasts falsely promised and sends a new message inviting survivors to join them. Luther, meanwhile, emerges alive from the Los Angeles tunnels. Any celebration is short-lived. A fleet of Umbrella aircraft approaches Arcadia carrying heavily armed troops, and the woman commanding them is Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), Alice’s former ally from Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004). Jill now wears the same mind-control device that Umbrella used on Claire.

Thus, after Alice loses her powers, finds Arcadia, exposes its deception, frees its prisoners, and apparently defeats Albert, Resident Evil: Afterlife ends by setting up yet another Umbrella attack. At least my salmon was delicious. By the way, I had no idea who I was looking at when Jill appeared on the screen at the end. Though I had recently watched the film in which she appears, I did not recognize the actress and, as such, did not know what was happening until I did my usual amount of research on the film. Maybe I should not be so hard on these movies despite their repetitiveness and lack of sense. After all, critics of Catholicism are often those who do not understand what is happening during Mass and think that it is the same thing each Sunday. Little do they know that its basic structure is the same every day! Actually, even that needs some qualification. The readings are different each day, the homily the priest gives changes, and the liturgical seasons alter various prayers and elements of the celebration. Still, the fundamental structure of the Mass, particularly the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, gives Catholic worship a continuity that stretches back through the centuries. Before you go thinking that I am trying to say that Resident Evil movies and Catholicism are alike, look at the effect they have on those who earnestly take part in them. The Church holds out the hope of eternal life with God in Heaven and seeks to lead Her flock toward Him. Where is the hope in any of these movies, particularly this one? The Faith holds that evil (pun intended) will ultimately be defeated. Here, it just keeps returning no matter what Alice does. That stinks.

So, yeah, Resident Evil: Afterlife stinks. The end . . . I wish.