So these things are still being made. The sixth film in the series adapting the classic video game franchise, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter has us again following our hero Alice (who isn’t in the games) as she returns to the Hive (which isn’t in the games) for a final battle with Dr. Isaacs and the Red Queen (neither of whom are in the games). Clearly this is a story that longtime Resident Evil fans have been clamoring to be brought to the big screen for a long time.
When we last saw Alice in the 5th film, she was in a monster-besieged White House and about to begin battle as humanity’s last stand. Don’t remember that? Well don’t worry because this movie doesn’t give a shit either. That is glossed over in a few lines and instead Alice receives instructions to return to the Hive (the site of the first film) within 48 hours to prevent the Umbrella Corporation from killing the last groups of human survivors on Earth.
None of this movie makes any goddamn sense. I am not a stickler for plot holes in movies that are just supposed to be dumb entertainment, but this is ridiculous. The big villain is Dr. Isaacs, who is looking much better since his death in the third movie. That inconsistency is explained by cloning, also known as the most clichéd plot device in existence for awful writers that have written themselves into a corner. Not only is he alive now, but he has also been promoted many times. Last seen as a subservient to Wesker, he is now part owner of the Umbrella Corp. somehow. I’m not sure how such a stock takeover would occur in a post-apocalyptic world, but good for him. Claire is also back. Last time we saw her, she was on a boat in part 4. How did she get to Raccoon City? Why did she go there? What the hell was she doing during the events of part 5? Who are the people with her? All good questions that the movie doesn’t care about. Her presence is almost as jarring as the complete lack of the other major characters from the series. Where are Jill, Chris, Leon and Ada? Don’t know. Nobody even mentions them.
A big pet peeve of mine for long-running series is when major plot elements that should clearly have come up by now are introduced and somehow everyone has been unaware of them thus far. Warning: Spoilers ahead, in case you’re the one person that would care. As it turns out, Alice is a clone of the majority owner of Umbrella, an old woman that has never even been mentioned before. Also, the virus in the first film was released intentionally to cause the apocalypse. Umbrella’s plan was to freeze all the high-level executives in the Hive (in an enormous chamber that wasn’t there in the first movie), wait out all the zombie shenanigans and then re-emerge into a cleansed earth. Aside from being a contradiction of the events of the first film, I have so many questions about this plan. If you are an executive at the largest corporation in the world, what would you gain by this? If the world is destroyed, who are you going to sell your product to? What equity are you going to have? What would even be the point of the company existing? And what are you going to do about the hordes of the undead that now populate the earth? This is why you don’t plan world takeovers in a Friday afternoon meeting; nobody pays attention to the small details.
This is also one of the most poorly edited films I have ever seen. I watched entire action sequences without a frigging clue what was happening because no shot lasts more than two seconds and most are shorter than that. This movie literally gave me a headache. Paul W. S. Anderson should not be allowed to direct another action film unless he is strapped down and forced to watch Die Hard on an endless loop until he can write a 1,000 word essay on why what he did is wrong. I can’t even comment on the effects because I couldn’t even see them most of the time. This film and Jason Bourne would make an ideal double feature for film students on how not to shoot action scenes.
I didn’t like the other movies in this series, but they weren’t awful. They wouldn’t be my first choice, or probably even my 50th choice, but they are a mindless, moderately entertaining ways to kill 90 minutes. This last movie, though, has the stench of contractual obligation. Aside from Milla Jovovich, everybody seems to be past the point of caring, as evidenced by some of the laziest writing and worst directing that I have seen lately. And while I hope that this is the final chapter, I will take that with a grain of salt. Finales aren’t supposed to sequel bait. But maybe we will get a reboot instead. Maybe next time they will even remember that this is supposed to be a goddamn horror series for once.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil:_The_Final_Chapter#/media/File:Resident_Evil_The_Final_Chapter_poster.jpg
