The massive, hammer-wielding boss from RE5 is brought to life perfectly in the prison bathroom scene.

The result was a quantum leap forward in visual clarity for the series. Remember the "murky, ceiling-wax aesthetics" of the earlier films, where action devolved into incomprehensible shaky-cam nonsense? Variety's review noted that Afterlife was "a far cry" from that, boasting action set pieces where "viewers can actually discern who is fighting whom and where". That is a baseline requirement that the previous sequels had somehow failed to meet.

: Paul W.S. Anderson returned after skipping parts 2 and 3.

When Resident Evil: Afterlife hit theaters in 2010, it was met with a collective shrug from critics and a divided response from fans. Many dismissed it as another loud, illogical action movie with little connection to the survival-horror roots of the games. But a decade and a half later, Paul W.S. Anderson’s fourth installment in the film series is due for a serious reevaluation. In fact, Afterlife isn’t just underrated—in key areas, it’s actually better than its predecessors and successors.

Unlike many films from the post- Avatar era that used cheap post-conversion, Afterlife was shot natively with .

And frankly, that’s better.

After stepping away for the second and third installments, original director Paul W.S. Anderson returned for Afterlife . His homecoming brought a more compared to the chaotic editing of previous sequels. 2. A Masterclass in 3D (Yes, Really)

Fans of the Capcom video games frequently criticize the live-action films for deviating from the source material. While Afterlife continues Alice’s original story, it actually treats the games with immense visual respect, specifically referencing Resident Evil 5 (released in 2009).