Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

We've been here before. Franchises have promised an end to things (Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, The Final Destination, etc) before reneging to offer up more instalments. Resident Evil has flat out lied with end-of-things titles like Apocalypse and Extinction so don't be too surprised if 'The Final Chapter' turns out to be another porky pie. Alice (Jovovich) is at it again: she's making her way towards The Hive to unleash the antidote and save the remaining world's population from the zombie virus. But Iain Glenn – a bible-bashing Iain Glenn in a tank that is – is hot her trail…

Paul W.S Anderson has been blagging a career since almost the get-go. A decent sci-fi, Event Horizon aside, Anderson's movies (from Mortal Kombat to AVP to Death Race to Pompeii) dispel with cause and effect, plausibility, character depth, and emotional engagement. Anderson's episodic (or video game levels) action sequences here have little to do what has just happened and has zero consequence on what is about to happen; at one point Alice twists her ankle in a car accident but is right as rain a moment later, and is knocked out on numerous occasions only to be up-and-at-'em upon coming to. Each disconnected scenario raises a minor problem before it’s immediately solved: 'We're out of ammo!' Not to worry, there's a handy bag of weapons right over here. 'We're trapped!' Not to worry, we can escape this way. Ad infinitum.

The action comes thick and fast in a haphazard fashion. At one point Anderson finds himself in an exposition scene and is aghast that a bullet hasn't been fired in anger in seven seconds. To rectify this he has 'imagined' action shoehorned in: Alice thinks of ways to kill those around her, and then the bad guy 'imagines' ways to stop her.

The bad guys – complete with terrible decision making and awful marksmanship – stand around waiting for Alice to do some convoluted mid-air twisty thing before raising their weapon. The dialogue stinks, its delivery flat, and the actors – their names and faces don't register - seem allergic to reacting to the demise of their friends. Nothing matters here. Anderson puts all his effort into his repetitive action sequences: quiet moment, LOUD NOISE, shoot, run. Six movies in and Jovovich has barely a scratch: she's essentially unkillable, which kind of kills of any tension that the marauding zombies are going to catch her.

The Final Chapter's biggest sin is that it's not any fun. It's ugly filmmaking, tossed together without much thought to appease young boys who don't get out much. And it doesn't make a lick of sense.

Awful.