I won’t sugar-coat it: this is a bullshit action film. That isn’t the same as being a dumb action film. It’s that too, but dumb action films can be super fun, as John Wick and the latest Fast & Furious films prove. No, for a dumb action film, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is not that fun, and that’s why I call it a bullshit action film.
The “plot” sees Alice (Milla Jovovich) in a post-apocalyptic world where she has only 48 hours to find a cure for the T-virus and save humanity from the undead. That’s it.
There are other characters, but they’re either henchmen with no personality or allies with no personality. The exception is Iain Glen (Game of Thrones’ Jorah) who returns to the role of Dr Issacs, channelling his inner Malcolm McDowell for maximum b-movie stiff-upper-lip villainy cheese. It’s kinda great.
However, the film usually fails where it counts – in the action. Director Paul WS Anderson displays every car chase, fistfight, and shootout with a visual spazziness that’ll often have you thinking “Wait, what just happened?” It’s like the cameraperson shot all these scenes one-handed while balancing on a unicycle during an earthquake, then edited it with a NutriBullet.
It’s only when Anderson calms the fuck down that the film gets good, turning into a confined horror where shots last longer than half a second. A scene involving a giant industrial fan is genuinely tense – if unoriginal – as is a Cube-like maze of death.
Jovovich also continues to look and sound like a badass, and to the film’s credit, it’s not afraid to mess her up in a Die Hard sort of way. She’s always been a great action star in a series that couldn’t keep up with her.
‘Resident Evil: The Final Chapter’ Movie Times | 3D Movie Times
