'Resident Evil: The Final Chapter' movie review: Milla Jovovich's Alice is back in generic drivel

Back in 2002 when the original Resident Evil movie came out I was a very excited movie buff.  It was a slick looking, sci fi horror zombie thriller based on a popular video game — there had never been a movie like that before. The Industrial Music and the final shot of Milla Jovovich standing with a shotgun in a ruined city was iconic to say the least. Fast forward fifteen extremely long years and not only has this become the worst movie franchise of all time, but also one where I have no idea how many movies have released to date. The latest Resident Evil — titled The Final Chapter (yeah, right) — attempts to answer questions you’ve had for the previous half a dozen movies in very solemn ways, but the execution is so boring and grating you’ll find yourself exiting the theater not knowing the answers. Once again written and directed by Paul WS Anderson this is the kind of a film where you wonder how such films keep getting made in Hollywood and why they keep making just enough money to justify sequels. This is also yet another video game adaptation that has little to do with the awesome ideas of the source material and veers into generic trope-y drivel. [caption id=“attachment_3264286” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Ali Larter, Milla Jovovich and Ruby Rose in a still from ‘Resident Evil: The Final Chapter’[/caption] Picking up an incoherent amount of time after the events of the previous film Retribution, The Final Chapter begins with a scene in which Alice (Jovovich) is chased by a dragon like creature. That sounds like a fun idea on paper but the action is so poorly choreographed it makes you despise the film right at the onset. There’s also a snooze inducing prologue explaining why the virus spread in the world, but it’s also as lazy and predictable as you’d expect anything from this franchise. Alice, like in every previous film, makes her way through one zombie set piece after another, and ultimately goes back to Raccoon City where all the trouble started from to vanquish the baddie once and for all. The acting, especially by the baddies Shawn Roberts and Iain Glen is laughably bad, but the utter worst thing about this film is the editing, and the name of the editor Doobie White could probably answer why it is so. Without any exaggeration I’ll have you know that there are an average of three cuts per second during the action sequences – giving you absolutely no idea what is happening. As the rapid fire cuts juxtaposed to awful music explode in front of your eyes your head spins and aches and those susceptible to motion sickness will tend to throw up everything inside their stomach. This is the kind of movie that will make you riot against the tyranny of 3D in Hollywood – you are literally paying extra to have a worse time in the movie theater. The other frustrating aspect of this film is how director Anderson, who showed so much promise with the delightful B-film Mortal Kombat and the genuinely cool and terrifying Event Horizon continues to belt out one stinker after another with his wife as the star. Neither does this film cater to video game fans – because the film doesn’t give a damn about the source material, nor does it service people who managed to sit through the previous films – because it has a twist that is so lousy it undermines everything Alice has done up till this point to save humanity. This is a movie that hates the audience and expects them to furiously hate it back.