Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017)
Milla Jovovich
At their best, monsters are metaphors
for ideas, or cultural phenomena, in Real Life that scare us, from
the most basic 'Other'/foreigner to, say, sex/desire in Bram Stoker's
Dracula. Zombies seem to have resonated in film more than any
other monster in the past fifty years or so, I think because they're
such blank slates: just plop them down in a certain setting, like a
mall in Dawn of the Dead (1978 or 2004) and bam, you have a
movie about consumer culture, and/or about how capitalism is turning
us into consuming zombies. Or, my favorites, 28 Days Later and
28 Weeks Later, about AIDS and Iraq, respectively.
The
Resident Evil
franchise, including this installment, Resident Evil: The
Final Chapter, written by Paul W.S Anderson (who has written all
of the movies in the series and directed the last two) hasn't
ever seemed to go that big, though consider this: The movie starts
with Alice emerging from the rubble of Washington D.C. populated by
zombies, monsters, and evil Christians. Sound familiar?
The movie has zombies, though they're
not the worst thing Alice runs into. The Resident Evil series
has always been a mash-up of genre films: horror, monster, science
fiction and, to a small extent in a couple of installments,
super-hero, when Alice obtains super powers.
The first minute of the movie catches
new viewers up to speed on what's going on in the Resident Evil
world, though at this point, I'm pretty sure anyone in the theatre
will have already seen the previous five installments, since Resident
Evil, which started out as, and continues to be, a video game,
has always had a loyal following. We continue to follow Alice (Milla
Jovovich) and a group of friends (including Ali Larter returning as
Claire, though alas, no Michelle Rodriguez) in a world ravaged by the
T-Virus, released upon the world by the (stand by for second oxymoron
of the review) evil corporation called...wait for it...the Umbrella
Corporation. The T-Virus causes people to turn into zombies.
Apocalypse ensues.
One thing I've liked in this series is
that weird shit outside the realm of zombies happens. The T-Virus may
seem to spawn monsters as well, though every once in a while some
kind of monster appears, like in Resident Evil Extinction
(2007), who seems to have been merely waiting for the zombie
apocalypse to happen to crawl out of its cave with a huge meat
tenderizer. That plus, like in The Final Chapter, some
monsters that seem to have been the result of “bio-engineering”
going on before the shit went down. The world doesn't always make
sense, be that's ok, neither does ours.
I have always like Milla Jovovich, from
The Fifth Element to (I'll face the haters) her role as Joan
of Arc in The Messenger. She
not Meryl Streep, but she works with what she's got, which in
Resident Evil is to be
an admittedly hot woman who could kick my ass (said women of which I
will always hold a spot for in my heart). If sometimes her lines seem
clunky, like they are in this installment, it's more the fault of the
script, written by Anderson (who happens to be her husband). And/or
the editing/directing, like when plot points and clues get thrown at
us twice, just to make sure we get it.
But,
we're not looking for art when we go to see a Resident Evil
movie, right? Except, what if we could? I think 28 Days
Later and its sequel kinda did
rise up beyond sheer entertainment. I can't speak for The
Walking Dead tv show, though the
graphic novel seemed to. But, this is just wistful thinking. I knew
what I was getting into: Milla Jovovich and zombies, what could you
really ask for?
Jovovich
is the appeal of the whole franchise: a strong female lead. Gals want
to be her and guys want to do her. Lesbians want to do both. Like
Sigourney Weaver, she hasn't ever seemed to break out of that
type-casting, though most actresses would I suppose love to be in
that position. This seems
to be the last installment, at least with Jovovich and Anderson. I
think. Unless it's not.
My own
unscientific survey of the Resident Evil
audience, based on my looking around the theatre before the lights
went out, is that this is a good date movie for nerdy fans of the
assorted mash of a movie: video game enthusiasts, sci-fi fans, and
maybe even a bit o' The Hunger Games
idealists.
PS—Stay past the
credits!
