Review of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) by Patrick L — 20 Oct 2017

"Resident Evil: The Final Chapter maybe excessively dumb and incredibly stupid but at least it's a competently-made final chapter".

DVD Movie Review: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter.

Date Viewed: May 20 2017.

Directed By Paul W.S. Anderson (Pompeii, Mortal Kombat, Alien vs. Predator, The Three Musketeers, Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Afterlife and Resident Evil: Retribution).

Written By Paul W.S. Anderson, Based on the "Resident Evil" video game series by Capcom.

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Eoin Macken, Ruby Rose, William Levy, Iain Glen, Lee Joon-gi, Fraser James, Rola, Ever Gabo Anderson and Matthew Santoro.

THANK GOD THIS SERIES IS OVER! After six brainless movies, the "Resident Evil" film franchise has finally come to an end. It is excessively dumb and incredibly stupid but at least it's a competently-made final chapter. The action sequences are actually pretty good and well-done but once again the characters are such cardboard cutouts and we don't give a damn about them especially Milla Jovovich's Alice who at this point must be running out charisma and sheer energy because she looks barely awake in this movie. The first "Resident Evil" film became one of the few video game movie adaptations to spawn a big franchise and these movies do really well overseas especially in China where the final film grossed $159.5 million. Once again, Jovovich's husband Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil, Alien vs. Predator, Mortal Kombat, The Three Musketeers) writes and directs and despite still being the directorial hack we like to hate, Anderson at least put some effort into it. The acting is not as robotic as with the other films in the series but that isn't saying a lot.

I never liked Milla Jovovich as an actress, she's always terrible in everything (okay except for "Dazed and Confused"). I felt that she never engages with the material she's supposed to work with and she also speaks in a very robotic voice. Gee I wonder why? "The Final Chapter" picks up where "Retribution" left off as Alice wakes up to a devastated and ruined Washington, D.C.. After being betrayed once again by Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) and battling a giant mutated flying pterodactyl-type creature, the red hologram known as the Red Queen (Ever Garbo Anderson) reveals herself to Alice but this time she's on her side. She wants Alice to return to the Hive in Raccoon City within 48 hours because the Umbrella Corporation has developed an airborne antivirus which would destroy every organism of the T-virus once and for all, if she doesn't make it in time, the last of humankind will be wiped out. That's not all, the Umbrella Corporation led by Wesker and Dr. Alexander Issacs (Iain Glen) whom Alice thought was dead is also preparing to make a final stand against Alice and the remaining human survivors.

Those remaining survivors include Doc (Eoin Macken), Abigail (Ruby Rose), Christian (William Levy), Razor (Fraser James), Cobalt (the Japanese fashion model known as Rola) and Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) who survived the attack on Arcadia from the end of "Resident Evil: Afterlife". All of them are prepared to stand with Alice in their final fight for survival and peace but once again they will have to fight off hordes of zombies or zombified creatures and encounter several deadly traps.

The plot is total bananas, the villains don't make much sense and the characters are one-dimensional but the one thing "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter" has going for is the action. The action set pieces are better put together than the previous installments but when we get to the plot, "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter" starts to get painfully boring. If somebody told me what's the worst of the "Resident Evil" movies, I'd say installments one, two, three, four and five because all of them didn't have a brain in their heads and were total nonsense. "The Final Chapter" is total nonsense as well but it's actually not as painful as I thought it was going to be.

In terms of summer home video releases as well as video game adaptations, you can do a lot worse than "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter".