Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017) Review
THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
I guess you got to go a little further back in order to end the madness for good.
PLOT
2017’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is the last film in the original Alice Saga by writer/director/producer Paul WS Anderson. The protagonist Alice, whistleblower of the evil Umbrella Corporation, has been betrayed by Albert Wesker and left in the ruins of the White House. The Red Queen program (Ever Anderson) would contact her and convince her to infiltrate the Hive facility back in Raccoon City to retrieve an airborne antivirus that’ll end the T-virus plague for good. The corporation knows they have it, but choose to wait until all humans are wiped out in the next 48 hours. Alice knows she’s exposed to the virus, but she still accepts the mission knowing she’ll likely die. When traveling does she get captured by Alexander Isaacs, meaning the one she killed was a clone. She does quickly escape his convoy and by the time she returns to Raccoon City does she reunite with Claire Redfield who she hasn’t seen since being separated from Arcadia. Now, she’s with another group of survivors: Abigail (Ruby Rose), Christian (William Levy), Cobalt (Rola), Razor (Fraser James) and Doc, the latter she is dating. They help Alice get inside the Hive while facing off the zombie horde outside, but most of them would die throughout the race against time. Inside does the Red Queen also show her an archive recording that revealed Isaac’s proposed unleashing the T-virus on purpose so that those that are rich & powerful, including Umbrella executives, who will be cryogenically frozen in the Hive, to rebuild the world. Showing her this explains why she wants her to act against Umbrella and warns her there is a traitor amongst her. When confronting Isaacs again for the anti virus does Doc reveal himself as the traitor and he shows Alice an elderly Alicia Marcus, who is what the Red Queen is modeled after. Long before the outbreak, her father James (Mark Simpson) made it to save her from progeria and when he forbade Charles Ashford to use it after seeing negative results on others, Isaacs had Wesker kill him and he adopted Alicia to take over Umbrella. Seeing her firsthand leads to Isaacs explaining to Alice she is Alicia’s clone which is why she doesn’t remember anything before the outbreak. With the truth out, Isaacs now intends to kill everyone else in his way. Still a co-owner of Umbrella, Alicia personally fires Wesker which allows Red Queen to terminate his protection program and crush him with a security door. As that happens, Claire kills Doc for his betrayal. Alice is able to outsmart Isaacs by planting a grenade in his pocket which wounds him. The protagonist would then reach the surface to summon the antivirus, but when he catches up, his clone from the convoy would catch up as well and kill him, believing he’s the real one. None of that would matter because by the time he gets devoured by the undead, the anti virus is summoned and it kills all monsters before Alice collapses. As that happens, Wesker summons Isaacs’ dead man’s switch that kills him, Alicia and the hibernating elite. By sunrise, Alice would be then woken up by Claire, revealing that exposure to the antivirus only killed the virus in her body and not her healthy cells. The Red Queen then passes on to her from Alicia all of her childhood memories that give her a sense of self identity. The film ends with Alice still choosing to drive into action continuing to eliminate zombies one by one, as the airborne antivirus will take years to spread over the entire planet.
THOUGHTS
Comparing this video game franchise adaptation to 1995’s Mortal Kombat, it’s quite the given to say Anderson never respected source material the way he thinks he does. He’s the kind of guy that focuses on entertainment first and substance later. He never gave enough respect of the opportunity and he shits on the vision fans were hoping he’d get right. The editing is so bad I’m just waiting for it to be over so I don’t have to see it again. I never even played the Resident Evil games, yet I can tell this so far from what it’s supposed to be. It’s like he’s going for his own fan fic narrative and it gets boring as shit the more he involves himself with it. There’s no shade against his wife, actress Milla Jovovich, because I think her line deliveries and stance still make Alice enough of a badass in what she’s given, but he forces the star power so much that I want to fall asleep and pretend I didn’t waste my time with this shit. The twist of her being Alicia Marcus’ clone who she also plays does set up the theme of how there’s value in sacrificial love than corporate greed, but then I stopped caring when they give Isaacs one too many clones as well. For someone who saw Game of Thrones, Iain Glen was stuck making the villain more cheesy than necessary in his return and he deserved better than this shit. I don’t even care about Wesker being two faced before his comeuppance because with Shawn Roberts keeping him just as blankly cunning, it’s not a surprise. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to be happy seeing Ali Larter back as Claire when Anderson can’t even bother giving a sentence to confirm Chris’ fate. For a finale, he ain’t ever trying to care about consistency. I don’t even care about Doc being the traitor because Eoin Macken plays it too straight and it’s bad enough I had to sit through another batch of side characters I’m not gonna have the time to care about since they’re guaranteed to all die before it’s over just for being with Alice. There’s no true point of Doc being the traitor if he ain’t gonna kill Alice during all those traps they evaded. With all that’s being said, that is just the beginning of things that don’t make any kind of sense storywise. Like for instance, you want to what’s more annoying than retconning James was the creator of the virus instead of Ashford which can be excused since it can be interpreted his daughter assumed he was responsible, but it’s weirder that no one got suspicious of how quick Isaacs adopted Alicia after her father died. I’m already annoyed of the fact Alice doesn’t have a scratch after using a claymore on one of the monsters, but Wesker should’ve just killed her in Retribution rather than leave everything to chance. There’s no good enough of a reason of him either to turn off the turbines when at least one person of Claire’s group actually died. And if Isaacs has the nuke ready, he should’ve dropped it sooner rather than give Alice a chance to stop him. I’m telling you, these villains are dumb as fuck. I even thought Alice was bad at strategy when it came to not telling Claire to retreat sooner from the horde. She’s lucky to have gotten out in time. It’s even weird that Red Queen didn’t even know Doc was the traitor after how efficient she is at knowing all of Umbrella. I already refuse to believe how did either version of Isaacs knew how to get to Alice in time to delay the anti virus, but what I hate more is Alice choosing to keep moving about as a lone wolf to continue fighting the undead worldwide. The Red Queen gave her self identity and that should’ve been enough for her to stop fighting. I want to respect that but if something of my life was missing got brought back, that’d be enough content for me to stop fighting. To get this over with, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is much worse of a finale compared to Breaking Dawn because it doesn’t give a fuck on what fans wanted in the first place. Avoid this if you really love the games and stick with the Zach Cregger reboot that has more passion that this piece of shit.
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