Resident Evil: Afterlife Explained: Plot and Ending

Resident Evil: Afterlife is the 2010 fourth film in Paul W. S. Anderson's live-action series, written and directed by Anderson, his first time back in the director's chair since the first film. It came out in the US on 10 September 2010 and was the first of the films shot in 3D. It follows straight on from Resident Evil: Extinction, brings Chris Redfield into the films for the first time and borrows heavily from Resident Evil 5. It's the fourth of the six Alice films. Full spoilers below. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

Before the story begins#

Extinction ended with Claire Redfield's convoy flying north to a rumoured safe zone in Alaska, and Alice staying behind in an Umbrella base where hundreds of her clones were waking up. She warned Umbrella's chairman, Albert Wesker, that she and her clones were coming for him. (Resident Evil: Extinction)

The main cast, from the Wikipedia credits: Milla Jovovich as Alice, Ali Larter as Claire, Wentworth Miller as Chris Redfield, Shawn Roberts as Wesker, Boris Kodjoe as Luther West, Kim Coates as Bennett, Spencer Locke as K-Mart and Sienna Guillory as Jill Valentine. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

Tokyo#

The film opens in Tokyo. Alice and her clones break into Umbrella's headquarters there and kill everyone in the building except Wesker. He escapes in a tiltrotor aircraft and sets off a bomb that leaves a huge sinkhole where the base stood. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

The real Alice has stowed away on his aircraft. She's about to kill him when he injects her with an antivirus that strips away the powers the T-virus gave her. Wesker reveals that he used the virus to give himself powers of his own. Before he can finish her, the aircraft crashes into a mountain. Alice survives and walks away. (Resident Evil: Afterlife; Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

Arcadia is empty#

Six months later Alice flies a plane to Alaska, following radio broadcasts from Arcadia, a place that promises safety to any survivors who can reach it. When she lands, Arcadia is just an airfield full of abandoned planes. A feral Claire attacks her. Alice tears a scarab-shaped device off Claire's chest, which calms her but leaves her with no memory of who she is or what happened to her convoy. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

The prison in Los Angeles#

The two of them fly south. Over Los Angeles they spot survivors on the roof of a prison surrounded by thousands of the dead, and land there. The group is led by Luther West, and includes Bennett, a former film producer, and his intern Kim Yong. Luther tells them Arcadia is still out there: it's a ship sailing along the coast, but it stopped moving some time ago and nobody aboard has answered their flares. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

In a cell, the survivors are holding one last prisoner. He says he's innocent and promises to show them a way out if they let him go. Zombies dig tunnels under the prison walls and come up inside, killing one of the group. With no choice left, the survivors free the prisoner, and he tells Claire who he is: Chris Redfield, her brother. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

Chris's way out is an armoured car in the prison. Then a giant monster with a huge axe, the Axeman, starts smashing at the front gate. Alice, Chris and another survivor, Crystal, go for weapons in the basement armoury, and Crystal is killed. The car turns out to be useless because its engine is missing. Bennett panics, shoots one of the others, steals Alice's plane and flies to Arcadia alone. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

The Axeman breaks through the gate and the dead pour in. It kills Yong and knocks Alice down before Claire fights it off, and Alice kills it. The survivors drop into the zombies' own tunnels and escape through the sewers. Luther is dragged away. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

The ship#

Alice, Claire and Chris take a boat out to Arcadia. It works, but it's empty. Then Claire remembers. Arcadia is an Umbrella trap: it broadcasts to lure survivors aboard, and its crew captured her convoy when it arrived and put scarab devices on them. She got away, but the device was still on her. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

In the hold they find the captured survivors held unconscious, among them K-Mart from Claire's convoy, and free them. Alice follows a trail of blood deeper into the ship and finds Wesker. The T-virus brought him back after the crash, but it keeps fighting him for control of his body. He thinks fresh human DNA keeps it down, and his staff fled when he started eating the test subjects. He wants Alice most of all, because she bonded with the virus and kept control of herself. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

The ending explained#

Wesker fights Chris and Claire and overpowers them both. Alice takes on Bennett, now working for Wesker. With K-Mart's help, Alice beats both of them, and they lock Bennett in with Wesker, who eats him. Wesker escapes in an aircraft and sets a bomb to blow up Arcadia. But Alice had already moved the bomb onto his plane, and it blows up in the air. Wesker parachutes out. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

Luther climbs out of the sewers, battered but alive. Alice doesn't know Wesker survived. She decides to turn Arcadia into the haven it pretended to be and records a new broadcast for any survivors still listening. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

Then a fleet of Umbrella aircraft appears over the sea, heading straight for the ship. Commanding the attack from one of them is Jill Valentine, missing since Raccoon City, with one of the scarab devices on her chest. (Resident Evil: Afterlife; Resident Evil: Apocalypse)

The meaning is plain: the survivors' win lasts minutes. The scarab on Jill's chest connects her to Claire's story. Umbrella uses the same devices on the people it captures, and now it has one on Jill. The film leaves several things open: whether the ship can be defended, how long Jill has been under Umbrella's control, and where Wesker went. (Resident Evil: Afterlife)

How it connects to Retribution#

Resident Evil: Retribution opens with the attack on Arcadia. Alice is captured and wakes inside Umbrella's biggest test facility, interrogated by Jill. By then Wesker has broken with Umbrella, which the Red Queen now controls, and he sends Ada Wong and a rescue team to get Alice out. (Resident Evil: Retribution)

How it differs from the games#

Afterlife is the film that leans hardest on Resident Evil 5, released the year before it. (Resident Evil 5; Resident Evil: Afterlife)

• Jill's device comes from the game. In Resident Evil 5, Wesker controls Jill with a device on her chest that pumps a drug called P30 into her, and Chris and Sheva Alomar tear it off. The films give the device to Umbrella and use it on Claire too. (Resident Evil 5; Resident Evil: Afterlife)
• So does the Axeman. The giant axe-wielding monster at the prison is modelled on the hulking, axe-carrying executioner enemy from Resident Evil 5. (Resident Evil 5; Resident Evil: Afterlife)
• Wesker's virus is closer to the games. In the games he survives the Spencer Mansion thanks to a virus William Birkin gave him, and by Resident Evil 5 he needs a drug to keep it stable. The film's Wesker also struggles with the virus inside him, though here he eats people to control it. (Resident Evil Code: Veronica; Resident Evil 5; Resident Evil: Afterlife)
• Chris has a different past. In the games he's a S.T.A.R.S. officer who survives the mansion in Resident Evil and later fights bioterror around the world. In the film he's a soldier who's been locked in a prison cell. (Resident Evil; Resident Evil 5; Resident Evil: Afterlife)
• Wesker doesn't die. Resident Evil 5 ends with Chris and Sheva killing him in a volcano. In the films he survives Afterlife and keeps going for two more films. (Resident Evil 5; Resident Evil: Afterlife)

Where it fits#

Afterlife starts the films' last stretch, and Retribution picks up straight from its final scene. For every film in release order, see every Resident Evil movie in order, and for where Resident Evil 5's own story sits in the games, see the Resident Evil timeline. (Resident Evil: Afterlife; Resident Evil: Retribution)