Avis Metacritic

Once one is acclimated to this chaos-cinema form, even if it’s a bit more assaultive in post-converted 3D, the writer-director’s simultaneous economic storytelling and boyish imagination come into clear view.

For fans of “Resident Evil,” I believe this final film will not disappoint, but it also will likely encourage newcomers to the saga to go back and play a bit of catch-up by watching the earlier movies.

Like most films of its type, “The Final Chapter” is utterly ridiculous in every possible way but unlike a lot of them (I am looking at you, “Underworld”), it at least has a healthy sense of its own absurd nature that comes as a blessed relief. And a couple of the action bits are gloriously goofy to behold.

For the first time, the story supports and adds to the action rather than distract from it; it’s almost as though Anderson was holding back in the earlier films because he wanted to save the best for last.

The movie percolates enough that even when, at its climax, it shamelessly recycles a grisly punch line from 1987’s “RoboCop,” it’s kind of endearing, not least because Mr. Anderson and company make it work.

Boasting a higher body count than its IQ, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is violent, idiotic fun.

A few individual scenes of hand-to-hand and foot-to-face combat are undeniably exciting, and Jovovich once again impresses with her kinetic athleticism. Overall, however, the repetitiveness and occasional incoherence of the nonstop action leave the audience exhausted for all the wrong reasons.

True, the movie's intense, and Jovovich is certainly in fighting shape. But after 15 years of this franchise, it's getting hard to tell Alice from the things she's fighting. It's all squint and grunt, slash and groan.

The action is practically non-stop from beginning to end, but is never remotely exciting due to the Cuisinart-style editing that reduces it all to an incomprehensible, messy blur.

There’s a fascinating satire of America’s unholy alliance of heartless corporations and the religious dupes who worship them just sitting here. But it’ll take a wit far cleverer than action hack Paul W.S. Anderson to work that out.