*Originally written February 6th, 2017*
"Game over"
For better or worse, there are now 6 live action Resident Evil films and also a few animated ones. The live action ones I have have been following since they started when I was very young. I rewatched them recently as an adult leading up to the release of 'The Final Chapter' and they... were pretty bad. There's a small group of people who see the series as some misunderstood masterpiece art. I will never understand these people.
Whatever, with all its highs and lows, after 15 years the series has finally reached a somewhat conclusion with this 6th entry. Calling something 'The Final Chapter' has never worked, and it doesn't here. Not only is calling this the "Final chapter" an outright lie, as a whole, the film is a complete nightmare and an editing travesty.
The story is fairly simple and rushed. It has the thinnest of premises and just really goes with it at a relentless pace until it just... ends. There is no real significant character development here, which is just insulting considering we're meant to be getting some sort of resolution for a character people have been following for 15 years. The only thing we learn new about Milla Jovavich's Alice is a complete middle finger to everyone who bothered to get invested with her story.
I was in disbelief at how they pissed on their long-term fans by delivering such an unsatisfying story that shits on everything that came before it. On top of that, they even had the balls to end the film with a tease of a sequel. A FUCKING tease for a sequel in a film titled 'THE FINAL CHAPTER'. What the fuck. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with the people involved in this trainwreck?
Aside from the lead, Alice having not much to do, we're given a supporting cast of characters that amount to zero. Albert Wesker still looks absurd and out of place, but this time he's given nothing to do, he's just sort of there. He pops up every now and then, but nothing memorable. Everyone new, I can't even remember. Ruby Rose is there for some reason. Characters die and I don't even learn their name. The camera sometimes linger on their dead face like we're meant to care about them, despite not knowing anything about them.
I gotta talk about the biggest mistake this film made. Despite failing on every level as a finale to a franchise. The Final Chapter's biggest crime is easily its editing. This is honestly one of the worst edited films I have ever laid my eyes on. I could not tell you what the hell was happening. Never before have I seen such a clusterfuck of quick-cutting, poorly framed action. Within each action scene I genuinely believe there were 5 cuts a second. It was incoherrent to the extreme. There was no excuse for this. Paul W.S. Anderson is not a good director, but I know he is capable of passable action scenes. What the fuck was this?
At the very least, I did laugh at how bad some of it was. There are some hilariously awful lines delivered by a suprisingly commited Iain Glen, he was amazing. Hamming it up to 11 nearly every chance he could get. He nearly managed to bring some life to a film as dead as its monsters. So, yeah, I laughed at how bad it is, so I enjoyed it a bit more than Afterlife in a way. So that is something at the very least.
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is an insult, a complete farce that shits on everything that came before it. A mockery to everyone who bothered to invest in the character of Alice and these 6 films. Dark,ugly and one of most poorly edited films of all-time. I will not miss the Resident Evil film franchise. It will be rebooted at some point, but for now, It's been a weird and oddly interesting ride at times, even entertaining to a point, but good riddance. You won't be missed.
1/10 Dans
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD now in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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