Review #133: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

This review was originally written in October 2021.

October 2021 Horror Movie Review #19- Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

First things first, I'm not going to spend this one complaining about how it has nothing to do with the game series, I promise.

Second, I'm so glad to be done with this series.

Third, I think it is ABSOLUTELY BONKERS that this series was 100% written all by the same singular person, and that same singular person directed nearly all of them, because PAUL W.S. ANDERSON CANNOT MAKE UP HIS MIND ABOUT WHAT HE WANTS THIS SERIES TO BE. Remember how JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson disagreed so hard on the Star Wars sequels that the end result is a confused, convoluted mess that contradicts itself left and right? This series does that even worse, AND IT WAS ALL BY ONE PERSON!

I joked previously about how (now THREE) previous films in the series ended on some big cliffhanger, and then the following film IMMEDIATELY swept it under the rug to go in a different direction. This one has the WORST example of that! Retribution ended with Alice (who had gotten her nebulous powers taken away at the beginning of Afterlife) getting taken by Wesker (who has superpowers of his own, remember) to go fight a giant army of zombies, and in doing so, he injects her with the T-Virus to give her powers back to her. Well this movie begins- Wesker is nowhere to be seen, there's no big fight with an army, and a few minutes in, it's mentioned that Wesker "pretended" to give Alice her powers back.... for some reason? First off, why? Second, wouldn't she immediately know that she hadn't been given back her powers when, you know, she doesn't have super powers? Third, WHY? It's also mentioned that Wesker "betrayed her" but of course this is not elaborated on- it's just supposed to completely sweep away the ENTIRE ending of the previous film.

Again, THE SAME GUY WROTE BOTH MOVIES!

Then Alice is given a completely arbitrary time limit to get the cure for the T-Virus (I even had to go back and check- no explanation is given, it's just "go get the antivirus within 48 hours" and then at the end other people are like "You've only got nine minutes left" while holding the antivirus in their hand, it's not like there was some scheduled antivirus-purge or something, it was just in a canister in a building). And of course the movie has to introduce a gaggle of nothing characters that have no defining traits, and naturally they all die. A big deal is made about how the Red Queen (played by yet another actress, all British and still with their now-famous catch phrase, "You're all going to die down here") apparently is unable to harm Umbrella Employees, to the point where the triumphant victory comes when Wesker gets fired because that means RQ can immediately kill him (even though he still has superpowers that make him immortal, right?) but I'm guessing Paul W.S. Anderson forgot THE ENTIRE FIRST MOVIE, where all of the characters were Umbrella employees and all of them died at the Red Queen's hands. Whoopsie!

There's also a big deal made about how when the antivirus gets released, it's going to kill Alice too because she has the T-Virus and it's going to kill everything infected with the T-Virus. Except... she DOESN'T have the T-Virus, because Wesker only "pretended" to inject her with it (since her powers came from the T-Virus, so if she had it, she would have her powers... right?). Whoopsie again!

And I'm really conflicted about the reveal that Alice is, herself, a clone of the girl the Red Queen was based on. On one hand, it's literally the only thing this movie does that comes close to being kind of cool, but on the other hand, it is set up SO POORLY and is SO INCONSISTENT both with the rest of the movies AND with this one, that I can't give it too much credit. Seriously, Milla Jovovich is supposed to be only a few years older than this little British girl, yet apparently her accent just like... went away on its own? Also, wasn't the Red Queen pretty firmly established to be based on Angela Ashford, the little girl who got kidnapped in Apocalypse? I have to mention again- WRITTEN BY THE SAME PERSON!

This series as a whole just can't decide what it is, and overall I'm disappointed with it. It's not a zombie series; I'd hesitate to even call it a monster series. It's a post-apocalyptic action series with the trappings of a horror series but with no intention of actually sticking to anything it's presented, instead choosing to weave a tale about how awesome the director's wife is. Oh, and can I complain about how The Final Chapter is the ONLY one in the entire series whose name is in any way memorable or appropriate? Resident Evil (the game) was called that because it was inspired by Sweet Home, a Japanese horror game that took place in a mansion. (Instead of a Sweet Home, it's an Evil Residence.) The movie did not take place in a mansion basically at all, instead going immediately into an underground corporate facility with holograms and traps. Then we have Apocalypse- which was about a group of cops (?) being stalked by a big assassin zombie- and then Extinction, which was about some drifters fighting off zombies in the desert. Then Afterlife, which was about a group of refugees fleeing to a safe haven, and Retribution, in which Alice escapes from an evil facility full of holograms and clones. Try naming any one of those based on the content and you will fail; try putting them in order without looking them up and you will also fail. This series FAILS at so many things, and names is definitely one of them.

I'm so excited to move on to something that's actually good.

Overall Rating: 3/10 Crappy Filmmakers

Fun Review Fact: The first two Resident Evil movies ended up on Roger Ebert's Most Hated Films List!