Resident Evil: capítulo final

As a big fan of the Resident Evil films, I was looking forward to seeing this even though the series has slowly been going down hill for the last few movies.

Some good action here and there but I felt like the film never really gets going. It all seemed a bit "forced", for want of a better word. A disappointing end to the saga for me personally.

I really hope they don't make any more of them in the future.

I had quite high hopes for this film after the tantalising cliff hanger of the last instalment, but this just didn't pan out how I hoped.

The story wasn't awful. It had some good elements, but it was pretty lazy in parts, and kind of obvious what was going to happen. It felt like they were going through the motions, just trying to wrap things up and cash out with a decent box office.

I was also disappointed with the action. The franchise has always been pretty up and down with its action, flipping between some pretty slick stuff and horribly shot set pieces. Unfortunately this fell into the latter category. This is such a shame because the stunt work actually looked quite decent in places. This was ruined by the constant cuts and horrible camera work. There were a couple of scenes where I genuinely had no idea what I was watching.

The effects were decent in areas, and we were treated to a pretty cool zombie set piece around the midway mark, but other than that it was pretty bland.

Not a great end to the franchise but it still managed to entertain me, so there is that.

Alice (Milla Jovovich) emerges from the ruins of Washington DC and is contacted by the Red Queen (Ever Anderson), who tells her of an antidote to the T-Virus that is located under Raccoon City. Alice has only 48 hours to find and release the antidote before the rest of humanity is wiped out by the Umbrella Corporation, whose plan is to repopulate the earth with the rich and the powerful, who are stored in cryogenic suspension in The Hive.

I've always been a staunch supporter of the Resident Evil films, finding them to be fun slices of slick action-packed horror, but that support ends with The Final Chapter. Once again directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, this supposed last instalment is an absolute mess, any potential for enjoyment hindered by an extremely slight plot, even by RE standards, and some of the worst direction and editing I have ever experienced.

As far as content goes, the film is business as usual, with big monsters, hordes of zombies, evil corporate types running the show, and Milla being bad-ass, but with the camera shaking all over the place and the majority of shots lasting for a fraction of a second, the action is virtually impossible to follow, making the film more likely to result in a headache than a thrill rush. And as if the wobbly cam/ADHD approach wasn't bad enough, much of film takes place in poorly lit locations, making it even harder to keep track of what is happening.

Despite being called The Final Chapter, the end of the film inevitably leaves things open for further adventures for Alice. If Anderson does intend to make more Resident Evil films, let us hope that he doesn't continue in the same style.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter reprises Milla Jovovich as Alice in the fifth sequel of the franchise that Paul Anderson derived back in 2002. Ali Larter rejoins Milla along with Iain Glen to bring a ridicules plot to an end, hopefully. I couldn't stand the single camera action sequences, I felt like the camera was doing all the fighting and not the characters. Unlike the original where slow motion camera angles made the franchise famous, this one was made on the cheap. The franchise did become the single most successful horror movie series in history but this flick was less horror and more how did this whole storyline get started. You may skip this one but if you want t know the ending maybe check it out.

So it's back to start and where it began, I'm not sure there was ever a cunning grand plan, for conjuring clones at behest, at their fancy, resurrecting, rebooting, digitised necromancy.

Raccoon City is where it's all at, it's where it all was and where it was begot, so down to The Hive is where everyone heads, trailed by thousands of diseased undead.

Cue more prequels, sequels and unequals.