Was That Film Really That Bad??? - Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

Question: Was that film really that bad?

Answer: Yes.

End of post.

Thank Fuck for that!

That, gentle reader, would have been the result of this WTFRTB post on Resident Evil: The Final Chapter if I had shown the same amount of effort as Wor Paul did when he made this conclusion to the long running franchise. This has to be one of the laziest, most pointless films I have ever watched, and that's saying something considering I have watched the previous five films that make up the tale of Alice (and several Uwe Boll titles too!). To put it more politely, I am not just disappointed, I am terribly disappointed.

War. War never changes... Oops, wrong post-apocalyptic franchise! I hope there is no Fallout from that.

The plot is straight forward. Alice finds that Wesker has betrayed her so she want's revenge. The Red Queen also wants Wesker stopped so blackmails Alice to do so within 48 hours or she'll let the last human survivors die. Cue a mad dash back to the Hive, where it all began what seems like decades ago. Add a couple of clones of Dr Isaacs, a very tacked on appearance of Alicia, the daughter who was used to model the Red Queen and whom Alice is based upon, and an opening expository monologue that takes up the first five minutes of the film, and what you have is a movie trying desperately to finish the series in a way that will please fans and any randoms who've wandered in off the street. Yet it can't even be bothered to do that.

It's a fixer-upper.

I have to admit, it's the opening that really annoyed me. At the end of Retribution, there was a camera shot of the White House with our survivors on the roof as the last bastion of humanity fought to the end. Ignore the fact that it's not the last bastion. Ignore the fact that it made no sense. Prepare yourself, however, for one of the worst traits story-telling can have. Telling, but not showing. The Final Chapter opens with Alice escaping to the surface of a destroyed Washington DC after the monologue states that Wesker had set a trap. That is the pay off for the fifth film. That is the way Wor Paul has treat the story, the characters, the actors and the audience. And, in my humble opinion, he's a fucking tool for doing it. See, I told you I was terribly disappointed.

New Cirque de Soleil looks a bit shit.

It doesn't get any better. There's a silly road trip vibe with a couple of badly staged action sequences, followed by some purely nonsensical religious shite from a clone of Isaacs, then another sequence of set pieces that recall earlier entries, such as the defence of the compound gates, the narrow death trap ventilation systems and a completely pointless and un-noteworthy death by large fan. This film is only a 100 minutes long, but by this point, the Rings Trilogy felt shorter... all three of them in one sitting. Yet it gets worse.

This is a fight scene, not that you can see it in the dark.

Most of the back half is filmed at night or in places with poor lighting. With rapid camera cuts and really shoddy CGI, it's like watching a cage fight during a power cut wearing a blindfold. Even the introduction of Isaac Prime means nothing, what with his combat software built in, something that the Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes films did so much better without resorting to technology. I know I have accused this series of stealing, sorry, homaging ideas from other movies before, but here it seems like it has been done half-heartedly, as if even the crew can't be arsed anymore. This extends to the "you're fired so you can be killed" schtick that Robocop did so well... in 1987.

No 3D maps, but plenty of CGI exposition.

The actors, on the other hand, well, Iain Glen as Isaacs x2 is good value and he gives it his all in the fight scenes. Shawn Roberts plays Wesker as the same one note Agent Smith clone we've had for the past two films, and even the returning Ali Larter pretty much sleepwalks through the film. As for Ms Jovovich, she's here, she can still fight, but her role as the aged Alicia is just terrible, with bad make up and a Primary-school play level of "old" performance.

Part of me thinks I am being a little harsh, though that is only a small part. Res Evil 5 cost $65m and took in $240m in return. Not too shabby but worse in general figures than the 4th film. The Final Chapter cost $40 and took in $314m, a superb return but I can't help but think that people really shouldn't have rewarded Wor Paul and co for the worst film of the series. Maybe it was a bribe for them to fuck off and never come back. Who knows? More pertinently, does anyone care? After seeing Alice ride off into the desolation, I know I don't.

What I can say is that this is, without doubt, the worst of the Res Evil films with Wor Paul's mitts on them, and a shite pay off for fans who followed from the oh so innocent days of Res Evil one. True, a couple of the films were decent, if flawed, notably the first and fifth. However, they seem to have existed purely to create employment opportunities and rake in the cash from an audience who should feel conned as the credits of The Final Chapter roll. Hell, if I'd seen this at the cinema, I'd be heading straight for the nearest bar for a medicinal beverage or eight. As it is, watching them on DVD means there is a small blessing. At current rates, I can get £2 from CEX for cash, £5 for trade in. That's got to count for something...

On a different note, if you like movies based on video games, there is a new book on that very subject! A Guide to Video Games Movies by Christopher Carton was released a couple of days prior to this post going up. I have ordered my copy direct from the publisher, Pen and Sword Books, and am looking forward to what the author has to say about Wor Paul's series of films, alongside (hopefully) other movies that I've talked about here such as DOA: Dead or Alive, Wing Commander, and In The Name Of The King (shudder). It should arrive early next week and I'll have a review up a couple of weeks after that.