By Cynthia Ayala

“Picking up immediately after the events in Resident Evil: Retribution, Alice is the only survivor of what was meant to be humanity’s final stand against the undead. Now, she must return to where the nightmare began – The Hive in Raccoon City, where the Umbrella Corporation is gathering its forces for a final strike against the only remaining survivors of the apocalypse.”

—Screen Jems/Constantin

Ah, what a perfect ending for a franchise. Okay, maybe that’s stretching it a little bit. It wasn’t perfect, but it was almost there. Aside from being ill-titled (it should have been titled Resident Evil: Endgame vs. being titled Resident Evil: The Last Chapter — I dare you to argue with me) the film was not without plot holes.

If you are a fan of the franchise, there are going to be aspects of the opening that will bother any fan. The opening contradicts established facts from Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Apocalypse. The first being who exactly was the creator of the T-virus was and why — the formula of the creation was correct but the who and why did not match up — and then there was the Red Queen herself and her creation, established within the first half hour of the first movie. I get the why Anderson went this route now, but too little too late. He should have gone back and re-watched his movie to make sure everything matched up.

At the end of the day, the story worked out but that opening sequence, to fans who care, it’s going to bother them as much as it bothered me, especially considering that fact that I had myself a mini marathon right before watching this movie. So fans, just be warned of that.

As for everything else, Milla Jovovich is amazing as always and it’s no surprise why this franchise has been such a success. This film brings some redemption to the series after the damage Retribution
brought. If I wanted to see the video game, I’d play it, that’s not why I go to the theaters. The creation of Alice allows this series some freedom to branch away from the video game franchise while also bringing in some of those elements to raise the tension for the audience. Here Alice is at her best, and her worst. She’s almost beaten down, she’s lost so much, she’s lost everything, but that doesn’t mean she’s just going to stand down and take it. No way. And she’s the strongest point of a film that is just about destroying zombies. It’s a zombie movie, so don’t go into this movie looking for some deeper meaning. The deepest meaning here is that corporations are evil. They aren’t wrong, but that’s the basis of the story, that corporations are willing to do whatever, hand out whatever, if it means power and money. But other than that, it’s an action film that devotes most of it’s time to action and character development.

This film did bring back fan favorite Claire Redfield. (Ali Larter) into the mix. Two strong leading ladies who kick all kinds of ass and are also willing to take the punches too. They rock the movie and dominated the story, and they have grown since their first appearances. As a duo, they are hard to beat. Only Jill Valentine and Rain would have made it even cooler. But we’ll take what we can get.

Overall, this was an amazing movie that tied up the franchise into a neat little bow. It goes back to the beginning and was, at the end of the day — especially after that AMAZING plot twist— an exciting and surprisingly emotional film to watch.

—Film Credits—

Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson

Written by Paul W. S. Anderson

Based on Resident Evil by Capcom

Starring: Milla Jovovich. Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Ruby Rose, Eoin Macken, Fraser James, William Levy & Iain Glen

Rating | Length | Genre: R | 1h 46min | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi

Distributed by Screen Jems