‘Resident Evil: The Final Chapter’ (2016) – Out with a Whisper?

Directed and written by Paul W.S. Anderson, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter had a lot of work cut out for it from the start. Ending any series requires the writers to tie up any loose ends left by the previous entries. A final film also has to have twists and turns that blow our minds. There is no need to preserve any of our favorite characters because once the film’s final scene ends, the story is over. Therefore, no one is safe and we pretty much expect that going into any final film of a franchise. Did this final chapter go out with a bang or a whisper?

 

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter starts out with the obligatory recap of the series. It is not so much to catch people up who haven’t seen it but more to refresh the people’s minds who have. From the very beginning, it is action packed. Alice (Milla Jovovich) goes up against a flying zombie creature and shows us why she is the ultimate badass. Then she is told, by none other than the Red Queen herself, that there is a cure that would end everything. All she has to do is travel across the country and release it into the air within 48 hours. Sounds simple, right? Well, the cure is located at the heart of the hive.

You all remember the infamous hive from the first Resident Evil, right? Well, as a fan of the series this is what hooked me when I saw the preview. They fought tooth and nail to escape it and now she has to return to it to end everything. What a poetic end to have it all come back to the beginning. Along the way, she encounters Claire and her band of misfits. They come up with a plan and the movie keeps on trucking from there.

I mentioned earlier that a final film has to have a few obligatory additives in order to successfully pull off its formula. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter came up a few ingredients short of a delicious meal. For one, it didn’t give us any real wow factor. There was no mind-blowing twist even though they had the perfect set-up for one. Early on, upon arriving in the hive, she is told that there is a mole amongst them. This was the perfect opportunity to pick one of the main characters and make them evil. That did not happen. Instead, they went with one of the cronies that we had just met.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter also was surprisingly generous with who they killed off. I expected almost everyone, if not all of them, to be dead by the end. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people get killed in this movie but I expected it to tug at our heartstrings a bit more. The action scenes were a bit on the quick side as well. It was incredibly hard to discern what was going on in most of them and that takes away from the entertainment value. Sure, I know that a zombie is getting their ass beat but I don’t necessarily know how because I can’t see what’s going on. It’s disappointing considering how amazing they have done with the previous films fight scenes.

Let us talk about what worked for this film since we just talked about what went wrong. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter did an absolutely amazing job tying up their loose ends. We find out why the entire outbreak happened to begin with and it is pretty epic. Alice, our friendly neighborhood badass, also gets some surprising news about who she is. That part wasn’t as mind-blowing to me because I suspected it a couple films ago but it still was pretty cool. Even though the fight scenes were sometimes indiscernible they still were pretty badass. Have you ever been chased by a giant pack of zombie dogs, like 40 or more of them? Well, Alice can say she has and it was terrifying.

Overall, for a final film, I would give it a 6/10, and props to it making over $13 million on its opening weekend. It wasn’t my favorite out of the series but I absolutely loved their explanation for why everything had happened. It wasn’t as emotional as I feel that it should have been and for those of us who have dutifully kept up with the series I expected to watch a knockdown, drag-out, no-holds-barred kind of film. We didn’t get that. I also expected for the majority of the film to take place in the hive and it was more of an afterthought. However, we did get a decent film. We just didn’t get an epic conclusion for the epicness of the franchise. It’s basically like the series came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. I enjoyed it nonetheless and would recommend it to fans of the series. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is in a theater near you so go check it out.