Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

Directed by: Paul WS Anderson | 102 minutes | action, horror, science fiction, thriller | Actors: Milla Jovovich, Iain Glen, Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Eoin Macken, Fraser James, Ruby Rose, William Levy, Rola, Ever Anderson, Mark Simpson, Milton Schorr, Siobhan Hodgson, Joon-Gi Lee

Game adaptations are often a lost cause. They never manage to give that feeling of energy when the player achieves his goal. Movies in that genre often get lost in a flood of explainer scenes to include those who haven’t played the game. In general, they are simply not good end products. There seems to be an exception for ‘Resident Evil’. It’s the only movie series based on a video game that manages to make it through to its sixth (and seemingly final) installment. Let’s face it though, it doesn’t have much to do with the original game anymore.

However, after six iterations of the series, they also kind of meld together. They don’t really differentiate enough to give each part its own face. Also in ‘Resident Evil: The Final Chapter’ the evil Umbrella corporation has a vendetta against all humanity and tries to wipe out our race and thus have a full-fledged apocalypse. Heroine Alice travels to Umbrella’s origin in Raccoon City to stop Umbrella’s monsters for the sixth time.

Fans of the games will of course recognize words like “Umbrella Corporation” and “Raccoon City” but the similarities pretty much end there. The films of ‘Resident Evil’ therefore follow a completely different storyline and do not fall into the horror survival genre that is known from computer games. Unfortunately, horror is hard to find in these prints. Instead, the movie universe falls more into the action genre. Are they good action movies? No not really. ‘Resident Evil: The Final Chapter’ is actually mainly a sequence of different scenes that have little to do with each other.

Main character Alice ends up in different situations, but when a situation is solved, our heroine is sent to a completely different scenario. This makes for a hugely disjointed film that is just not fun to watch. The action is not even fun to follow, the images are often so very dark that there is hardly anything to see. And when there is something to see, it is hideous to look at. In any case, the samples extracted from the computer date from a time that has long since passed the current film landscape.

Why then put six of them on the market? It must be the same reason why new ‘Transformers’ movies are still being made. The masses seem to get some pleasure out of it and that is understandable on a certain level. An ironic viewing session can still be done, but do not spend too much money on it. However, the die hard Resident Evil fans still crave a movie that lives up to the games and the faster this franchise bleeds to death, the sooner there will be a reboot that will hopefully be a whole lot better.