Resident Evil has been 1 of my quite favorite action movie with the war between human and zombies. So when I heard there was going to be another movie in the "series", I did not hesitate to decide in seeing this one when it premiered yesterday. As usual, for a weekday movie premiere, my wife was kind enough to spare some time to buy the tickets for me (thx honey). The time was 7 PM and it was in Lotte Avenue with the Dolby Surround 11.1 system which would quench my thirst for a good sound system when watching this kind of movie in theater. After having our light dinner, we arrived at the studio at almost the start of the movie.
Brief Story Line
Movie started with few minutes of background story of how the zombies were created, which kind of summed up the entire 5 previous Resident Evil series and continued with our main protagonist Alice (Milla Jovovich - Ultraviolet, The Three Musketeers etc) who arrived at Washington DC only to find out that there was no one to save. After fighting off a very large monster, Alice reached an Umbrella corporation old office where the computer was switched on, and the Red Queen (the hologram of young Alice) informed Alice that the cure to the T-Virus was already created. She convinced Alice that the cure should be acquired in 48 hours otherwise it would be released only to the Umbrella Corporation executives. The location of the cure was none other than the underground headquarters called the Hive in Raccoon City where it all started.
During her journey to Raccoon city, Alice encountered Dr. Alexander Isaacs (Iain Glen - Ser Jorah Mormont in Game of Thrones TV series etc) who was 1 of the bosses of Umbrella Corp. After some crazy fighting between the two of them, Alice managed to escape from the horde of zombies and the Isaacs team led by Lee (played by Korean actor Lee Joon-gi - The King and The Clown) who rode an armored steel vehicle and heading to Raccoon city as well. Isaacs then informed Wesker (Shawn Roberts), the never-stay-dead agent working for Umbrella corp and also guarding the Hive about Alice's most likely visit.
While escaping, Alice then met with her old friend Claire (Ali Larter - Final Destination, Heroes TV series etc) who was taking refuge in the Raccoon city's last encampment of some of the last remaining human population there. Claire had made friends with some armed refugees that included Doc (Eoin Macken - Merlin TV series) with whom Claire was having relationship, Christian (William Levy) who did not trust Alice at all, Razor (Fraser James) and Abigail (Ruby Rose - xXx: Return of Xander Cage) who was able to create equipment/weapon using old stuff. Alice suspected that there was actually an inside person working for Umbrella Corp within this group. Meanwhile, as Isaacs and his team plus the horde of countless zombies were heading towards Raccoon city, Alice and her new group of company would have to fend off the attack while making sure she got to the hive and acquire the cure in time.
So could Alice and her friends beat Isaacs & Lee's team? Was there really an inside person amongst Claire's group of friends? Could Alice make it in time to reach the hive? Would she be able to acquire the cure and save humanity after all? Find them all in this full action movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Wow, this movie was indeed full of action. From beginning till end, the audience were given very little time to breath as the movie was filled with countless action of Alice fighting monster, Alice fighting Umbrella corp agents, Alice fighting zombies, the war between Alice and friends with Isaacs' team (well, you get the picture). Since the movie was supposed to be "the final chapter", the story felt a little bit forced to finish and therefore it was a little bit short. The main focus here seemed to be the action sequence which was no doubt very cool. With that in mind, I am quite sure that the audience who wanted to see great story line would be disappointed watching this. So I really think that if you are one of those, better avoid this movie.
Regardless of the very short story, the movie itself was very entertaining in term of actions, plus the sound effects were spectacular. I loved the sounds effects during all the fights and I also loved it during those silence moments with sudden surprising/shocking moments to give the extra sense of rush and suspense. In addition, the first few minutes scene of providing the short summary and background of the T-virus was just nice. For people who never saw the franchise before, it appeared to be sufficient. Though if you really want to understand the whole story, you might need to see the previous ones (brief note on this below).
One thing that I regret was the finale fight scene that took long time and made the timeline became illogical. I think this was due to my experience watching 24 TV series (Kiefer Sutherland as the lead character) where the series was done in real time with actual minutes & seconds. So when I watched this part, it made me feel dissatisfied. Anyway, apart from that only "flaw" to my opinion (rest of them I could still tolerate), I was totally enjoying this movie. There were so many fight scenes that were coreographed nicely but my favorite would be the one on one fight between Alice and Isaacs (2 times). I am not sure about whether watching in 3D would give additional impact, but I saw at the end credit that the movie was converted to 3D so it was not originally shot in 3D. Btw, talking about the end credit, my wife and I waited till the very end and interestingly there was something which might be of interest, if you are willing to wait.
Another thing that made me wonder was that the movie was said to be the final one. However the end scene seemed to suggest otherwise. Or maybe I was just interpreting too much? But, if there is indeed another chapter, I would not mind watching it again.
So reminder to all of you, if you enjoy watching full action movie with very cool fighting scene between human vs zombies and many one on one fights, plus you do not mind a very simple story without overthinking it, then this movie certainly would suit you. However, as I mentioned earlier, if you do not belong to this kind of audience, then you may not going to enjoy it. The choice is yours.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Note:
Resident Evil was based on popular horror survival game owned by Capcom video game company. It was first time issued in 1996 in Play Station and later on would be released in other platforms. The game was so popular that it was later on created into many other forms such as comic books, novel and later on movies. The first Resident Evil movie was released in 2002. The film's quite commercial success was continued with sequels after sequels later on, i.e. Resident Evil: Apocalypse (in 2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (in 2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (in 2010) and Resident Evil: Retribution (in 2014). So in total until the final chapter, there are altogether 6 movies.
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