Remember the whole battle that was being built up at the end of the previous film? Don’t worry about it, because it doesn’t matter. Instead, we get an origin of the T-Virus, Umbrella, and Wesker.
It feels like there wasn’t a plan for these movies, or they had to change directions as actors came and went constantly. Things get retconned in this movie. It is so weird.
There is a bunch of weird stuff in this movie. I wouldn’t say I like most of it. It took me a while to get around to this movie because I just didn’t want to watch it. Anyway, let’s get this over with.
Plot summary
We pick up with the aftermath of the battle at the White House. Everyone is dead, except for Alice. I guess she has superpowers, but who knows? I‘m sure there will be a flashback at some point.
Alice fights a bio monster, and we learn that Umbrella is still around. I wonder what happened to their cloning vats? Those seem to have been abandoned.
She wanders aimlessly through the ruins of Washington, D.C., looking for anyone. Instead of a person, she finds what I can only assume is the last fax machine on earth and meets with the Red Queen. Now, the AI is pro-humanity and wants to save the remaining 5,000 humans on Earth.
Apparently, there is an airborne anti-virus that Alice can release to end all of this. The Red Queen says it is all Wesker’s fault, and Alice has 48 hours to fix everything. Now we have a little road trip movie.
Now we have a group of commandos. What is happening? Alice, who doesn’t have her powers anymore, kills them and gets knocked out.
Well, she sleeps away half her time and ends up in a creepy laboratory with Dr. Issacs. Apparently, she killed his clone. Anyway, he’s a bad guy and runs a religious cult. This is just a collection of action scenes.
Stuff just happens in this movie. Action movies like this run the risk of being boring. I only say this because random stuff keeps happening, and it seems like the filmmakers are hoping that people have seen the other five movies.
The poor actress who plays Claire Redfield is back. She leads a group of survivors armed with weapons from every low-budget post-apocalyptic movie from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. What happened to Chris, Leon, and Ada? Doesn’t matter.
We get a version of the battle from the end of the last film, only it is on a budget. This would be cool if it were in a different series. I’m guessing our characters are all going to die. I wish we had gotten to know these people so that it would mean something, but it is a bunch of nameless people.
You know what would’ve been great, is if Kurt Russell showed up as Snake from Escape from New York. It wouldn’t have made sense, but it would’ve been awesome. I feel like everything would’ve been better.
Now, we’re running through a post-apocalyptic city. That is what most of this movie is. Running from CG monstrosities. I wish this were happening during the daytime so I could see what is happening.
The dogs stop chasing them. I have no idea why. I guess the plot demands it, or something like that.
There is a traitor in the group of survivors. They introduce a timer, and we have some traps. Oh, Dr. Issacs is still alive. He’s going to matter, I suppose.
Our heroes get killed off as the group makes it further into the hive. I wish I knew their names, or anything about them. Why is it so hard to kill all of them?
There are a bunch of clones and other nonsense. Basically, Alice needs to kill Issacs. Wesker is basically dead.
Issacs has superpowers now, great. I wonder what happened to the other version of him? The last we saw, he was leading a group of zombies into the hive.
This is all going to end with the antivirus being released and the world being saved. It is what you would expect from something like this. Alice will be okay, and we’ll move on to a different series of movies.
The movie teases that some of the bio weapons are still alive. I have no idea how that is possible, since they were supposed to have the T Virus in them, but whatever. It sounds like the filmmakers left it open-ended in case Capcom let them make another film. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
Quick Recap of the Series
Here is a quick list of the movies and if I liked them or not:
- Resident Evil – I liked this one. It was different enough to be fun.
- Resident Evil: Apocalypse – This was a fun movie that tried to fix what was wrong with the first one. More characters from the video games were introduced, and it felt like they tried to be more like the games.
- Resident Evil: Extinction – I felt like I missed a movie in between these films. This was more like Mad Max than anything else.
- Resident Evil: Afterlife – I don’t even remember this one. I think it is about the prison, and it has the mind control boob spiders.
- Resident Evil: Retribution – This was odd. It brought back actors from the first couple of films as clones and crow barred in Leon and Ada. I didn’t like it much.
- Resident Evil: The Final Chapter – I’m glad this is over. The film isn’t good, but thankfully it is all over. It tries to have a message, but it doesn’t go anywhere as the series will be rebooted.
I liked the first two movies, and didn’t like the rest of them. I’m glad this is over.
Wrap up
Basically, this series devolved into a discount Mad Max series, or an Italian zombie movie from the 1980s. I kept expecting the ending to Nightmare City to pop up and tell me this was all a dream.
I don’t like this movie. I’m glad it is all over. This version of the Resident Evil lore is awful.
The filmmakers tried to do something different, which ended up being terrible. There probably was a plan for all this, but it seems to have changed from movie to movie. It is just boring.
They shoehorn in some religious cult into all of this. Character motivations turn on a dime from movie to movie. Key characters from the game are introduced and then never heard from again. It is just bad.
I found myself rooting for everyone to die in this movie. I didn’t like Alice anymore, didn’t know who any of her friends were, and nothing seemed to matter. The CG also got worse as things went on.
It is a good thing that this series got rebooted. It has been a few years since I watched “Welcome to Racoon City,” and I’m looking forward to seeing it again. It can’t be worse than these.