I have somewhat of an abusive relationship with the Resident Evil movies. I don’t particularly enjoy them, but I still watch them. They cause me nothing but grief, but I’m still there, unable to answer the fair questions about this relationship from my family and friends. I thought the first one was sort of fun, but I remember being very confused how it didn’t really have anything to do with the games. I mean, there were zombies and a licker towards the end, and I guess it technically had a mansion in it, but the whole thing seemed pretty alien. The second one had a little TOO much to do with the games, but it was a steaming bowl of garbage soup. As the movies go on, you kind of notice that Mila Jovovich’s character Alice is the only person allowed to do anything cool, and every element introduced from the games is pretty much empty fanservice. This culminated in part 5, where they basically had random dudes cosplaying as beloved characters from the games like Leon and Barry. They could have been 2 dudes named Brian and Travis, and it would have fit just as well in the grand scheme of things. Any person who was a fan enough of the games to recognize them would be angry in how they were treated, so it’s hard to tell who these elements are in there for. Anyway, they made a 6th one, and it’s supposedly the last one. I’ve actually managed to see all these movies in the theater by myself, as I couldn’t con anyone to go with me. This one was no different… So here’s the lowdown on my new cinematic rock bottom.

This motorcycle plays prominently into the movie due to some pretty blatant product placement..  it’s seriously pretty crass

This movie picks up after the events of the last movie, but not RIGHT after. There was a tease at the end of pt 5 where the good guys were all in DC, preparing for a last stand against the horde of zombies and bird monsters and shit. We open AFTER this fight, and are told it was basically a trap, and everyone except Alice is dead. This all happened off screen, of course. Alice opens the movie doing her usual exposition monologue, sort of recapping the earlier movies, but it’s pretty clear they play fast and loose with the continuity. They re-introduce Dr Isaacs, who was the main villain in pt 3, but was killed. It’s worth reminding us who he was, since these movie are pretty forgettable. So Alice is just hanging around this warehouse foraging for scrap metal, and this giant bird monster that kind of looks like Jeepers Creepers is attacking her. She ends up blowing it up with a bomb or something, and goes into the basement of the building. There’s a creepy 80s style dot-matrix printer just making sheets that say “Hello Alice”. Turns out that the Red Queen hologram from the previous movie is just chilling out in this random basement. She tells Alice that there’s an airborne vaccine, and it’s located back at The Hive from the first movie, but the catch is, she only has 48 hours to get there and release it, because the few humans that are left will be gone by then, according to her calculations.

Where’d you get those peepers?

Alice has no choice but to go back to the Hive, and the countdown is on. Of course, she is IMMEDIATELY captured by Umbrella. Like literally 2 minutes after she left the Red Queen. She gets pulled aboard this giant tank thing, and is confronted by Dr. Isaacs. Of course, the Dr Isaacs from part 3 was a clone, and the real one wasn’t killed. That’s some bullshit right there. She tells him that he could stop all this, which lets him know she is aware of the antivirus. He decides to drag her by the rear of the tank, which is getting chased by zombies until she talks about what she knows. He goes to call Wesker and let him know what’s up, and he’s all “Hmmmm… This is interesting. Let me know when you get to the Hive”, and instead of just putting a bullet in the head of literally the ONLY person who can stop them, they just keep dragging her for a bit until she inevitably breaks free and steals a motorcycle. Since motorcycles are WAAAY faster than tanks, they lose her in the chase. Alice has 18 hours left at this point.

I guess it’s pretty good that you stumbled into my random creepy basement when you did, because otherwise, everyone would be dead

Alice gets to the Hive, and is IMMEDIATELY captured again. But this time it’s by a bunch of good guys that are surviving on the outskirts of Raccoon City. Of course, Claire Redfield is here, because why the hell not? Alice tells them about the antivirus, and that Dr Isaacs is on his way with tanks and about 1000 zombies, and they need to prepare for a fight. 12 hours left at this point. So, they wait for a few hours for the tanks to show up, and there’s a fight, and Alice and co. lure the zombies in a courtyard or something, and burn them by dumping like several thousand of gallons worth of gasoline on them. What kind of post apocalyptic world is this that has THAT much gasoline lying around? Anyway, after the fight, they see more zombies come in, so they decide they have to high tail it into the Hive. Once they get in, they have exactly 37 minutes left.

No keep following her, I want to see how this plays out

OK, here’s the thing. They had 12 hours. They wasted like 10 hours preparing for a fight that they ended up running away from anyway. In those 10 hours, they could have just gone into the Hive, found the antivirus, and been done. I get that storywise, they wanted to have the 3rd act play out in real time, but it seems really dumb to have that countdown play such a major role in the story, and then have the main characters waste so much time in accomplishing the task at hand. Also, if Dr Isaacs is aware they’re preparing for a fight, why not just be like “yeah, if they’re just gonna wait for us to show up, let’s just not show up”? These idiots probably would have just kept waiting until it was too late, and they would have won the war, even if they lost the battle. Of course, this would have been a moot point had they just put a bullet in her head like 30 hours earlier.  I am really just annoyed by such piss poor time management, I guess.

So, along the way here, they show footage of the Umbrella board of directors discussing the plan to release the T-Virus as a method of culling the population, even though they explicitly stated in the last movie, it was to create a bio-weapon to sell to foreign power. Also, Wesker tells the Red Queen to seal the hive at least 4 times. Alice, Claire, and like 3 randos we don’t have a reason to care about start working their way through the Hive. Of course there are traps. The first rando gets sucked into a giant fan, and the group is split up. Alice and a bearded dude find cryo-pods containing the Umbrella elite, and they are confronted by ANOTHER Dr. Isaacs. So I guess the dude in the tank outside is another clone? He tells Alice that he has the antivirus, and that he has himself all jacked up on the T-virus and cybernetics, so she can’t beat him in a fight. Then he wheels out another Mila Jovovich in old lady makeup, and it’s revealed that this is Alicia Marcus, who was the daughter of the founder of Umbrella, and she had progeria. The Red Queen was modeled on her as a child, and Alice was cloned from her, and given the T-virus to get rid of the disease. So all 3 people are the same person? Also, the rando that Claire split off with was revealed to be a traitor. Old Alice tells Alice Alice that she can still save the day, or something, and fires Wesker so that the Red Queen can smash him with a door, robocop directive style. Alice gets away, and chases Dr Isaacs. They go through the laser tunnel from the first movie, and Alice gets her ass kicked, but puts a grenade in his pocket. She gets outside, but the Clone Isaacs is outside waiting for her before she can release the antivirus. Then Real Isaacs comes out, and Clone Isaacs freaks out on account of not knowing he’s a clone. They end up killing each other, or something, and Alice breaks the vial. The zombies start dropping dead as the antivirus spreads. So I guess this tiny little vial is enough to spread all around the world? Is that how stuff like this works? I don’t know. Anyway, the movie ends and Alice is still alive, but now she has Alicia’s childhood memory so she can be a full person now.

She should totally hook up with Guy Pierce from Prometheus

This movie is a continuity ignoring, jumpy action having, poor decision making, ugly looking, poorly paced, poorly cast, poorly acted, poorly written mess. It’s still better than part 5, partly because i went in with lower expectations due to part 5 being so bad. Also part 5 totally ruined Leon, you guys. At least this movie didn’t waste any good characters from the games, and if it actually IS the last one, that’s at least a positive. It’s definitely skippable, unless you’re like me and are just like “well, I made it this far, so I gotta finish”. Well, getting this far was already your biggest mistake, so whatever. See this if you have to. Just don’t expect to enjoy it very much.

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