Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

Plot: Alice returns to the birthplace of the zombie apocalypse to take a final stand against the evil Umbrella Corporation who is in its last leg to eradicate what is left of humanity.

Review: The last installment in the billion dollar Resident Evil franchise, among one of the more successful game-to-movie adaptations, even though all movies have the same basic plot --- kill the zombies, survive the apocalypse, defeat the boss and escape with enough story to make a sequel. With Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, literally being the final chapter (though they leave it open-ended), does it deliver the goods to be the fitting finale to its 15 years long on screen journey? Not really, but it does come close.

Leaner than the previous installments, this film has Alice (Milla Jovovich) has a mission to save the remaining 4,500 people on earth which the Umbrella Corporation means to destroy. The Red Queen, a double crossing supercomputer who has been a nemesis to Alice until now, actually helps her this time by telling her where she can get the only remaining vaccine to cure the undead within 48 hours. She teams up with her old friend Clare Redfield (Ali Larter)and other survivors and tells them of her plan --- to return to The Hive, release the anti-virus and kill her old enemies Wesker (Shawn Roberts) and Dr Alexander Isaacs (Iain Glen) --- all within 48 hours. As a result, we miss out on a lot of scenarios and the movie feels confined to just a few intense sequences. That being said, it’s a delight to see Alice escape by the skin of her teeth more than half a dozen times, with each of those close-shaves being truly thrilling, and the 3D makes them all the more exciting. The zombie-killing too has become a tad stylish than the previous installments and so have the weapons and the monsters.

Its climax though, unravels so cleanly, that the build-up seems like a waste. However, at the end they leave enough of a story that you wonder whether the next movie in the franchise is a reboot or a sequel.