Resident Evil Afterlife (2010): Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

The story of Resident Evil Afterlife moves in four stages: a failed strike on Tokyo, a search through Alaska, a siege in Los Angeles and a final fight at sea. Alice and her allies hit Umbrella's underground base in Tokyo, and the raid ends with the now infected Albert Wesker stripping her of her special abilities. She is left as an ordinary fighter against a corporation that has not slowed down.

Six months later she flies north, drawn by a broadcast that promises a safe haven called Arcadia. Alaska gives her Claire Redfield instead, dazed and unable to remember who she was. Alice takes her to Los Angeles, where undead crowd around a prison and a few survivors sit trapped behind its walls. The two women get inside and join them.

The cells hold Chris Redfield, and the group frees him. Then comes the film's largest set piece, a clash with a huge executioner who swings an axe.

The survivors treat Arcadia as the real destination, but when they reach it the ship proves to be an Umbrella trap. Alice meets Wesker on board and defeats him. He gets away by parachute. In the final shots, Umbrella aircraft close in on Arcadia, led by Jill Valentine, who is under mind control. That image sets up Resident Evil: Retribution.

The ending of Resident Evil Afterlife means that Alice wins the fight but loses the war, and the film uses Arcadia to show it. Alice beats Wesker on the ship and he escapes by parachute, leaving the survivors with a vessel that was never the refuge they hoped for. In the last shots an Umbrella squadron approaches Arcadia, led by Jill Valentine under Umbrella's control.

In my opinion, the key choice is letting Wesker live. He is the one villain who stays attached to Alice's fate, and since Shawn Roberts returns as Wesker in Retribution and The Final Chapter, the parachute escape reads as a setup for more. It could be argued that this is the film's smartest move, because it denies the audience a clean victory in a series about an enemy that never really dies.

Why does the trap matter? The whole film is built on a promise. The Arcadia broadcast pulls Alice out of the Alaskan snow, and it also drives the survivors in the Los Angeles prison, who are stuck behind walls with the undead outside. When the refuge turns out to be an Umbrella trap, the film reveals that the corporation controlled the hope itself. Compare that with Extinction, where Alice also follows hints of a safe region in Alaska and the story is a desert road trip: Afterlife takes that same thread and shows the end of it was a cage.

The Jill image is the other half. She was an ally in Apocalypse, played by Sienna Guillory, and here she leads the attack, so the next film opens with Alice facing someone she trusts. Retribution picks that up with Arcadia under attack from Umbrella gunships led by Jill, after which Alice is captured. The Final Chapter later closes the loop by sending Alice back to the Hive, so the Arcadia cliffhanger starts a chain of events that runs through the last two films.

There is a production angle too. Paul W. S. Anderson wrote and directed this film and Retribution and The Final Chapter as well, so the cliffhanger is a promise he could keep himself, unlike the first three films, which had three directors between them. Paradoxically, the ending is stronger than the middle of the film, because it gives the series a personal hook that the prison siege, with its executioner set piece, does not quite match.

Resident Evil Afterlife reportedly has a post credit scene featuring Jill Valentine. She is said to appear briefly during the credits, setting up the next film, Retribution. Details of the scene beyond her appearance are not confirmed by a trade source.