There is no doubt, in retrospect, that Resident Evil’s finest hours have passed - the first trilogy followed a clear path and was satisfying both as individual movies and as part of a series. The first movie in what we presume is the second trilogy has not been as satisfying and doesn’t seem to know where it is going with the story. But in spite of that, Milla Jovovich continues to fascinate as Alice.

Resident Evil Afterlife was a huge let down. Like other fans I was looking forward to an army of Alices, but instead the clones were killed off in the first ten minutes. What, couldn’t the producers afford that many Milla Jovovichs? Then, just compound the feeling of unease that was setting in, the story recalled two of its least interesting characters, the convoy leader Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) and K-Mart (Spencer Locke).

Alice not only no longer has any clones, but also is not superhuman anymore. But she survives a helicopter crash in her usual superhuman way and eventually runs into Claire, who has gone feral thanks to a device planted on her chest by the Umbrella Corporation. Alice removes it and some how Claire gets a new hairdo and a face full of make up as well. Next stop is LA, where they find Claire’s brother Chris in prison. Alice is looking something or some place called Arcadia, and learns that it is \in fact a tanker that is looking for survivors.

But of course, The Arcadia is an Umbrella Corporation trap, where more shady experiments are being carried out on the unwary, and it is here they find K-Mart (so named because she was found in a ruined K-Mart after the T-Virus took over the world).

There have been some attempts to update the story - it has a new villain, Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) who is all very Matrix like in dark glasses, but there is no sense that future films have a direction. Resident Evil Retribution is due to be released in September 2012, with Milla of course, and the return of Jill Valentine, who was briefly glimpsed at the end of Afterlife. Sienna Guillory will again paly the role. Michelle Rodriguez (Rain from the first movie) is also set to return, and Carlos (Oded Fehr) although as both their characters died, it isn’t really certain yet what their roles will be. According to director Paul S. Anderson has said that the fate of the last movie in the second trilogy depends on the success of Retribution.