The fourth and fifth films are the evil Umbrella Corporation conducting giant cloning experiments. (The weird lab, to be fair, was also in the game, but a much smaller part.) The third film featured zombies who could do martial arts because, by that point, regular zombies weren’t scary enough.
The original movie skipped the haunted house idea that made the game it was adapted from so spooky, going straight to a weird lab full of zombies. A fan of the games, I was irritated at the ridiculous, often barely cogent direction the films took. In my younger days of being a humorless nerd, I disliked the “Resident Evil” movie franchise intensely. “Resident Evil” brazenly, hilariously, does not give a damn. Everything changes on a whim to fuel the film you’re currently watching. “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” retcons the previous movies so thoroughly, that the second in the franchise, “Resident Evil: Apocalypse,” basically becomes a footnote. Characters return out of nowhere, as clones, for no good reason other than the fact that clones are awesome. Characters vanish from the series, die off-screen or are never mentioned again. Everyone but the franchise protagonist, Alice (Milla Jovovich), apparently dies in it.Īlso Read: 'Resident Evil: The Final Chapter' Review: Milla Jovovich Franchise Saves Its Best for Lastīut that’s “Resident Evil.” There may never have been a franchise that worried less about continuity. Instead of returning to that huge fight, the battle happens off-screen. Anderson shouting “Nope!” as “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” gets going. You can almost hear writer/director Paul W.S. It’d be the same move “Retribution” made with the final shot from its predecessor, “Resident Evil: Afterlife.” For five years, we thought “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” would pick up right there, at that battle. The camera pans back and back further to reveal the scope of what the heroes will face.
At this point, the world has been over for three whole movies, but the bad guys are still sending soldiers and military vehicles after the good guys because, I don’t know, it’s hilarious or something.Īrriving at the barricaded, a military-swamped White House transitions to the series’ signature final shot. At the end of “Resident Evil: Retribution,” the fifth movie in the franchise, all the principal characters who are still alive gather at the White House for a final, desperate stand against undead monsters.