Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Writer: Paul W.S. Anderson (Screenplay)
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Iain Glen, Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Eoin Macken, Fraser James, Ruby Rose, William Levy
Plot: Alice returns to where the nightmare began: The Hive in Raccoon City, where the Umbrella Corporation is gathering its forces for a final strike against the only remaining survivors of the apocalypse.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Nice Conclusion
Story: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter starts with the real origin of the T-Virus as it was created to save the life of its creator’s daughter Alicia, but the side effects gave us deadly outcome of the zombie outbreak, with the creator’s partner Dr Isaacs (Glen) killing him. We continue the narration for 5 minutes before picking up in Washington DC in the aftermath of a trap with Alice (Jovovich).
We start the main story with Alice taking on a dragon like zombie because why the hell not, right? Alice gets a visit from the Red Queen who offers her a chance to end the zombie outbreak for good and revenge on Wesker (Roberts) who led Alice and her friends into the trap. The mission is to head back to Racoon City and back into the Hive where it all began to release an airborne cure. Along the road Alive finds an old enemy in Dr Isaacs who has been controlling things in what he calls a cleansing mission, leading an army of the undead back to Racoon City. Arriving back in Racoon City Alice finds a new pocket of survivors who Claire Redfield (Larter) has joined as the remaining humans go to war against Isaacs and his army of zombies before looking to finally put an end to zombie apocalypse.
Thoughts on Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
Story – There are two ways I am looking at the story, the first is in all the positives and that is this does come back to tie everything together in the series and deliver a final installment the fans can enjoy with plenty of throw backs to the previous instalments of the franchise. On the negative side of the story we don’t have the most original story because it is the same core Alice joins resistance group, ends up leading them in the battle before most die and she must fight an ‘unkillable’ enemy that she can kill. Yay that is the core story which is all fine when you switch you brain off but offers very little new.
Action/Horror – The action is wildly over the top just like we know, we have bigger action set pieces while the horror side of the film is almost forgotten now in the series.
Characters/Performances – looking at the characters we all know the Alice story by now, Dr Isaacs and Wesker are both franchise favorite villains and the returning Claire Redfield is all good. It is the new ‘disposable’ character which are mostly all forgettable as we have the tough chick, the one who hates Alice only to grow respect and the tough guy who you can replace with almost anybody.
The performances are all on a par with anything we have seen before with Jovovich showing she is the true star of the show, Gen adding the class in the villainous role with Roberts impressing once again as the emotionless villain. Looking deeper into the cast I felt Fraser James was doing his best Idris Elba impression throughout the film and it is getting worrying to see Ruby Rose continuing to look like she is take the role Michelle Rodriguez is best known for the bad ass chick which she is good at but this is the second time this year.
Settings – Bringing all the action back to Racoon City I feel is a good thing, we get plenty of nods to the previous instalments along the way with the use of the settings, I feel this is a good way to end the franchise by respecting each location we have seen Alice must fight through.
Special Effects – When we look at the special effects we always find ourselves getting plenty of over the top sequences that all look good throughout as the film sometimes focuses on the effects over the story.
Final Thoughts – This franchise will always end up going down as one of my guilty pleasures watches, I do like switching my brain off at time and Resident Evil is always going to offer that for me. This isn’t the most original but the action is pure madness so I am happy to enjoy that and paying respect to the previous films I am happy to see too, but I would have liked some of the other characters who were stood ready for war at the end of the last film with Alice appearing in the film.
Overall: Good mindless action film you can fully switch off and enjoy.
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