It’s a bit of a miracle that we got to six “Resident Evil” movies.
The brainless, faithless adaptation of the hugely popular videogames set the bar low with its first entry in 2002, but it would only be downhill from there.
With “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter,” it’s more of the same that we’ve been getting for 15 years – messy narratives, recycled action, and an almost complete lack of fun. The film’s title alone suggests a long-overdue sense of finality, the last gasps of a forgettable series just waiting to be put down once and for all.
In a movie where seemingly every element is a letdown, the script is the most frustrating weakness. Despite the series being at a point where the only filled seats in the theater are the same people who have been there since the start, “The Final Chapter” begins with an excruciating amount of exposition recapping the series thus far. It’s little more than a montage that’s not far from Prezi-level quality.
From there on, there is little logic to be found for an hour and 40 minutes. That’s especially true when it comes to the film’s big baddies; they aren’t the film’s undead (though there’s plenty of that as well), but they might as well be just as brainless with how many easy passes they seem to give Alice and company. It’s like they’re begging for their plan to be halted.
Which might work in a different context, but not here. An incredible forced revelation in the final act doesn’t help the proceedings. It’s a horribly executed attempt to get any semblance of empathy out of the audience. Instead it borders on self-parody.
In many ways, it seems like the overarching problem with this “Resident Evil” entry, and the series as a whole, is that it takes itself much too seriously. But it’s hard to justify even that excuse when there is no semblance of cohesive story.
In retrospect, most fans probably aren’t making it out to a “Resident Evil” film in 2017 for the story anyway, rather looking for mindless action and bombastic set pieces connected by the thinnest threads that logic can provide.
But “The Final Chapter” underwhelms in that vein too. The action sequences – which range from fighting zombies to zombie dogs to zombie-bat-pterodactyl creations – are so poorly directed that they feel like leftovers, a cache of deleted scenes from prior “Resident Evil” movies.
The camerawork is headache-inducing, the CGI downright cheap, and the sound editing…I refuse to believe there was any sound “editing” involved. From a technical standpoint, the movie is nails-on-a-chalkboard bad.
One would have thought that Paul W.S. Anderson – who has written the previous five films, and directed three of those, as well as “The Final Chapter” – would have decided enough is enough with the mediocrity.
Right up to its truly insufferable ending, the series never figured out what its identity was – should he have focused on compelling stories or an innovative visual aesthetic? Because “Resident Evil” was never going to be both.
The fact that the series almost never truly lies in the realm of horror was perhaps the strongest sign early on of prolonged disappointment. But refusing to ever truly be movies made for the fans is the lasting legacy of “Resident Evil,” if history ever grants it that distinction of being remembered beyond February.
“Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” is rated R for sequences of violence throughout
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Iain Glen, Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
2016
David A. Lynch 