Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017)

 

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

Thank god that its finally over. I hope. Paul W.S. Anderson finally closes out the film series based on the very popular survival video game series. The video game series is actually excellent and tons of fun, the same cannot be said for the film series. I did enjoy Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Apocalypse as far as the films go, but I cannot say that I liked the rest at all. I wasn’t very keen on checking this film out but there was a curiosity to watch it be put out of its misery.

The film starts off with flashbacks to young Alicia Marcus and the creation of the T-Virus. I think this was necessary for people who may have forgotten how the outbreak and destruction even started. We then see Alice walking the streets of a desolate and ruined D.C. while fighting some monsters along the way. I immediately got annoyed by the headache inducing, rapid, editing. Its awful. It takes so much away from the action sequences as you can’t fixate on anything on the screen. You can’t even get a good look at the monster designs so its a real downer.

The situations are absolutely ridiculous. I know you have to suspend beliefs sometimes for action sequences but my god we get some really ridiculous fight scenes that are not only cliched to hell but ridiculously improbable. Alice maneuvering her way out of the moving laser beams had me rolling my eyes multiple times. The film introduces a side cast that nobody will ever care about. Ali Larter as Claire Redfield returns but she remains so underdeveloped that you won’t care to see her. There are multiple moments where Anderson tries to produce jump scares but they are so horribly predictable and out of place in this type of film. We’ve seen all of it a million times before and this film basically comes off as cheap. The editing will do your head in.

The films passages aren’t always interesting. The picture quality is mostly dark, dull and ugly. I don’t really rate Paul W.S. Anderson as a filmmaker but this was TV SyFy movie levels in terms of quality. Some questions are answered and I guess some loose ends are solved but its not anything amazing and remains cookie cutter. If you enjoy all the other films you will be satisfied with the film series’ conclusion. For me however, this film was the worst of the bunch but the silver lining is that the series has finally closed itself off.

5/10