Film: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
Director: Paul W S Anderson
Cast: Milla Jovovich, Shawn Carter, Allie Larter, Ruby Rose
Rating: 1.5/5
The best way to attempt to dissect a movie like Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is to do unto it what management students do unto, well, pretty much everything.
SWOT Analysis style.
So here goes.
Strengths: Killer action sequences that could make great cuts for a reunion tour in the future. In isolation, they're the only things that made it bearable.
Every plot line opened up in the last five movies were tied up despite the tedium it caused.
Alice's biceps. No, really. Milla Jovovich beats everything from zombie gargoyles to deranged part-cyborg clone villain man to pulp. Also, constantly getting beaten and cut and shot at don't seem to make her cry. You go girl.
Weaknesses:
A story that's so thin that it can't hold water. The entire climax, set in the 'hive', an underground fortress built by the evil corporation that started the zombie apocalypse, is actually under water. Poetic, that.
There's so much shooting that after a while you begin to miss the constant ratatat of the guns. Not.
The zombies don't get any good lines. Considering how everybody else likes to hear the sound of their voices, it's a tragedy that the zombies (by far the majority group in this post apocalyptic world) don't have a say. No wonder they looked perennially pissed.
Opportunities:
Director Paul W S Anderson got one more shot to redeem himself for the terrible movies in the franchise that came before. Boy did he blow it.
Milla Jovovich had a real chance of showing Kate Beckinsale up and Trump her streak for acting in the most number of crappy films in a single franchise. She looks great and all but Becks is ahead, by my reckoning
Threats:
Mostly to people who attempt to watch this film to find fulfilment in life. Bad idea.
To the same people again, after watching the last scene - everyone's dead and the world is saved, but Anna says she's far from done. Oh my.
So that's the short version. It's an awful movie that appears to have been shot as a series of action sequences.
- Anna kills weird creatures in the ruins of the White House (on an aside, how about that for being prophetic).
- Anna beats the crap out of armed guards while caught in a trap.
- Anna kills a few hundred zombies and rappels on to a tank and blows it up.
- Anna attacks enemy base while all the other rebels fall behind.
- Anna defeats supervillain and saves humanity, the world and the producers of this film.
Put them all together with a few montages and you've got this movie all wrapped up.
If you are a person who has followed the Resident Evil movies and is a fan, of sorts, then you should definitely give it a watch. At the very least, you'll have this to be thankful for - its the best Resident Evil movie to release in this last decade, by some distance.
Verdict: Avoid it like the plague. Or get 'happy', sit back and laugh it off