Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

Plot

Dr. James Marcus, the original founder of the Umbrella Corporation, had a daughter who was dying of premature aging. Desperate to save her, Marcus developed the T-virus as a way to cure all diseases on Earth. After having had his creation taken away from him, Marcus' business partner Dr. Alexander Isaacs tried to convince Marcus to use the T-virus for military purposes. When he refused, Isaacs ordered Albert Wesker to kill Marcus.

Some time after the events of the previous film, Alice awakens in the now-ruined White House, after being betrayed once again by Wesker. While searching for survivors, the Red Queen appears and tells Alice she must return to the Hive in Raccoon City within 48 hours, where the Umbrella Corporation has developed an airborne antivirus, which will kill every organism infected by the T-virus, before the remainder of humankind is wiped out. When asked why she is betraying her creators, the Red Queen says that she will explain once Alice arrives at The Hive. Alice destroys a giant mutated flying creature to escape Washington, D.C.

On her way to Raccoon City, Alice is captured by Isaacs, whose clone Alice previously killed, but she escapes his convoy. Alice later arrives in the now-destroyed Raccoon City and is captured by a group of survivors, consisting of Doc, Abigail, Christian, Cobalt, Razor, and Claire Redfield, who is revealed to be alive after the attack on Arcadia. After learning a group of armored vehicles and a horde of zombies is coming their way, the group prepares to make their last stand. They defeat the enemy forces, although Cobalt is killed. The group later realizes that a second horde is coming in their direction.

With no defenses left, Alice and the crew decide to get to the Hive entrance, located at the bottom of the nuclear bomb crater which destroyed the city. However, Wesker, having taken control of the Hive, releases mutated guard dogs, killing Christian. Upon arriving at the Hive, the Red Queen appears again to Alice and explains the reason of her betrayal. She revealed that a video was uploaded to her program which contained the recording of the Umbrella executives, including Isaacs, having a meeting regarding the world, formulating a plan to release the T-virus on purpose in order to cleanse the world, save the rich and powerful with cryogenic capsules hidden in the Hive, and later rebuild the world in their image. The Red Queen, although programmed to never hurt an Umbrella employee, was also programmed to value human life, which is why she enlists Alice's help in order to stop Isaacs. The Red Queen also warns Alice that someone in her group is a spy for Umbrella.

Entering the Hive, the group encounter several traps, and Abigail and Razor are killed. After planting bombs around the Hive, Alice confronts the real Isaacs, while she and Claire are captured by Wesker and Doc, Umbrella's spy. A cryogenic capsule opens, revealing Alicia Marcus, Umbrella's co-leader and Marcus's daughter; Alice is revealed to be just a clone of Alicia. Isaacs plans to eliminate Alicia and gain full control of Umbrella, but Alicia then terminates Wesker's employment with Umbrella, which signals the Red Queen to crush his legs with a security door. Doc tries to shoot Alice, but his gun is empty – as Alice had deduced his treachery earlier – and he is shot dead by Claire.

Encouraged by Alicia's words, Alice and Claire fight Isaacs, who is eventually killed by his own clone – the one Alice had encountered en route to the city – and Alice releases the antivirus, killing the undead. The bombs planted within the Hive explode, killing everyone inside, including Alicia, all the frozen Umbrella employees, and Wesker. Claire later wakes Alice, who survived as the antivirus killed the T-virus within her body. The Red Queen gives Alice an upload of all Alicia's memories of childhood. Some time later, Alice travels to Manhattan, stating that the antivirus could take several years to reach all corners of the globe and until then, her mission is not over, as large flying creatures pursue her.

At the end of the credits a voice of Red Queen can be heard saying "You're all going to die down here".

Cast

Production

In September 2012, following the box office success of Resident Evil: Retribution, a sixth film in the "Resident Evil" series was confirmed by the head of Sony Pictures distribution, Rory Bruer, with Milla Jovovich attached to reprise the role of Alice. In October 2012, in an interview with Forbes, producer Samuel Hadida stated that a sixth and seventh installment were being planned and a reboot of the series was possible. In December 2012, director Paul W. S. Anderson confirmed that he would be directing "Resident Evil 6,". He stated that it would be the last film in the series and some characters from the first two films would return. In June 2013, Jovovich tweeted that the sixth film, which had been scheduled for a September 12, 2014, release, would not be released before 2015. The film was scheduled to start shooting in late 2013 as soon as Anderson had finished work on his disaster/romance film Pompeii.

In February 2014, Anderson told Collider that "we'd like to do another Resident Evil movie. Definitely. But the wheels aren't quite in motion yet,"; the film was reportedly planned to be released in 2015. In April 2014, while speaking at the Beijing International Film Festival, Anderson revealed that he would soon be writing the screenplay for the sixth film in the series. He also confirmed that the film would be in 3D and that actress Li Bingbing would be returning to play Ada Wong. In June 2014, Anderson announced the film's working title to be "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter" and confirmed that it was intended to be the final film in the series. He also revealed that half the script had been completed, but, as yet, there were no shooting or release schedules. Filming was set to begin in South Africa in August 2014 but was delayed for a year because of Jovovich's pregnancy.

On July 15, 2015, Jovovich posted a photo on Instagram announcing that shooting was about to start in South Africa. Actors from previous films: Sienna Guillory (Jill Valentine), Li Bingbing (Ada Wong), Aryana Engineer (Becky), Spencer Locke (K-Mart), Michelle Rodriguez (Rain Ocampo), Wentworth Miller (Chris Redfield) and Johann Urb (Leon S. Kennedy) weren't invited to return for the last movie. On August 3, 2015, it was confirmed that Ali Larter would be back for the sequel in the role of Claire Redfield, and filming would begin in late August or early September. Larter confirmed the sixth film would be the last in the franchise. On September 18, 2015, other cast members were announced including Iain Glen as Dr. Alexander Isaacs, Shawn Roberts as Albert Wesker, Ruby Rose as Abigail, Eoin Macken as Doc, William Levy as Christian, Fraser James as Michael, and Rola as Cobalt. On October 19, 2015, Lee Joon-gi joined the film to play Commander Lee of the Umbrella Corporation.

Japanese rock band L'Arc-en-Ciel created the song "Don't Be Afraid" specifically for the Japanese theatrical release.

Filming

Principal photography on the film began on September 18, 2015, in Cape Town / Hartbeespoort Dam, South Africa.

During filming, Jovovich's stunt double, British stuntwoman Olivia Jackson, was severely injured when her motorcycle collided with a camera crane, leaving her in a medically-induced coma for two weeks. She had been riding at high speed without a helmet, leading to the accident ripping off half her face, and crushing her facial bones. Among Jackson's injuries were cerebral trauma, a crushed face, a severed artery in her neck, a paralyzed arm, several broken ribs, a shattered scapula, a broken clavicle, torn fingers with a thumb that needed to be amputated, and five nerves torn out of her spinal cord. The camera crane had malfunctioned and failed to move out of the way. Jackson announced in December 2015 that her paralyzed left arm will need to be amputated. Her arm was amputated above the elbow.

A second accident occurred during filming on December 3 when crew member Ricardo Cornelius was crushed to death by one of the film's props, a U.S. Army issue Hummer, while on set. The Hummer was placed on a rotating platform, and fell off, crushing Cornelius, who was assisting with the scene, against a wall. He later died in hospital.

Filming ended on December 9, 2015. According to Paul W. S. Anderson, the director, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter was fully shot with 2D cameras and post-converted to 3D by the company: Legend 3D. It's the first time that a movie from the Resident Evil saga has a 3D post-conversion, since the last two installments were shot in 3D.

Release

Sony first scheduled the film for release on September 12, 2014 before delaying it over two years. The film was released in Japan on December 23, 2016, and in North America on January 27, 2017, by Screen Gems.

Box office

As of March 23, 2017 Resident Evil: The Final Chapter has grossed $26.8 million in the United States and Canada and $280.7 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $307.5 million, against a production budget of $40 million.

In North America, the film was released alongside A Dog's Purpose and Gold, and was projected to gross around $13 million from 3,050 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $1 million from Thursday night previews and $5.1 million on its first day. It ended up opening to $13.9 million, the lowest debut of the franchise, and finished 4th at the box office.

The film opened on February 28, 2017, in China across 11,000 screens, earning $30 million on its opening day. Through its opening weekend, the film made 636.9 million yuan ($92.7 million), according to official local sources, a new record for an imported film. This marks the biggest Friday through Sunday debut ever for an imported film, topping such heavyweights as Transformers: Age of Extinction (632 million yuan) and Captain America: Civil War (628 million yuan) and the second biggest for all films, behind only Lost in Thailand.

However, figures varied slightly by different outlets — Shanghai-based cinema consulting firm Artisan Gateway had its opening weekend at $93.9 million while the film’s studio, Sony Pictures came in even higher with $94.3 million.

Critical response

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter received mixed reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 33% based on 81 reviews, and an average rating of 4.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter may prove mind-numbingly chaotic for the unconverted, but for fans of the venerable franchise, it offers a fittingly kinetic conclusion to its violent post-apocalyptic saga". On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score 49 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". On CinemaScore, audiences gave the film a grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.

Alex Welch of IGN was critical of the film, giving 3/10 and calling it "a pointless mess from beginning to end", and "nothing more than a barrage of cliched character beats, unbearable CGI action, and headache-inducing editing". Glenn Kenny for The New York Times writes, "This is, I think, the weakest picture in the franchise".

In contrast, Bill Zwecker of Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 stars out of 4, saying it "[gets] the storyline right off the bat". He adds, "For fans of Resident Evil, I believe this final film will not disappoint, but it also will likely encourage newcomers to the saga to go back and play a bit of catch-up by watching the earlier movies".