For the past four films, director Paul WS Anderson has taken what was once a very entertaining horror franchise and turned it in to a series of movies fetishizing his wife and doing nothing more than further his muse-like view on her. We nearly saw her naked in the first movie, she was a bad ass in the second, a goddess in the third movie, and in the fourth we're given an army of Milla's, presumably a concept Anderson got his jollies off of. That said "Afterlife" is a movie that continues to drag on this wasted concept and posit the question: Why is Umbrella continuing their research if about ninety-nine percent of the world consumed by hellfire and the walking dead? What do they further have to gain beyond being evil for the sake of being evil? I'm assuming during the writing process Anderson turned to Milla and shrugged "Every movie has to have a villain, I guess." After yet another introduction from heroine Alice (who explains the back story yet again for people wise enough to have stayed away from the first three films), we find the character in another predicament corrupting the inner sanctum of Umbrella after four years of traveling across the globe finding their secrets and trying to stop their operations.

Mad Max never got that memo. When not blatantly ripping scenes and ideas from "The Matrix," "Dawn of the Dead 2004," "The Walking Dead," and "Equilibrium," Anderson never seems to know how to create this world around him. He tries for a desolate aftermath while also trying to push couture on us with villains who still dress in black suits, and don shades in dark offices if only for the purposes of indicating loud and clear who are the villains and who are the heroes. This kind of clumsy characterization is prevalent throughout most of "Afterlife" where Anderson feels the need to provide on the nose images of actions. For instance, in the opening when Wesker (Why is Shawn Roberts still acting?) injects Alice with an antidote for the T-Virus while explaining its effects, we see a CGI image of the cells being eaten alive. Why that's at all necessary is a question best left in the air to spare sanity. Questions like why Umbrella still operates underground, why they're still trying to dominate a world without civilization, why the plot jumps back and forth through time periods, and why Alice can fly an airplane suddenly are all not applicable for an Anderson movie.

He just doles out whatever plot devices he feels could move the story and begging for logic is just a tall order. In a mere ninety minutes we're forced in to monologues of Alice expressing her thoughts through video diaries (a cheap on the noise device to lay the movie out for a dumb audience), finding a character from the third film, and basically looking for Wesker through the hordes of CGI skyscrapers, and CGI zombies, and becomes the messiah for yet another group of survivors (shocker) struggling to escape a prison they seized during the siege and Anderson basically just concocts his very own "The Rock" but with a clearer focus on the film's Macguffin involving a mysterious ship in the sea that could mean an exit home. Never prone to just focusing on survivors and their plight, Anderson ends this installment with a typical one on one CGI enhanced fight scene and the threat of a new sequel. I'd really love to enjoy these movies, but Anderson proves time and again that he's really not concerned with entertaining as he is just taking our money and valuable time.

The team of Paul WS Anderson and Milla Jovovich continue their brand name exploitation with "Afterlife" a movie that's barely even remotely touching on the concept of "Resident Evil," but continues to ride on that name recognition nevertheless like a thief in the night slaughtering all of its clout and respectable genre placing. This is a movie that makes the "Dawn" remake look brilliant. The demand of abysmal entertainment continues with this duo and they are more than happy to oblige the rock bottom expectations.

• Spencer Locke is gorgeous. It's a shame she doesn't get more screen time.