Film review: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter concludes the movie franchise

The Resident Evil movie franchise has been going on since 2002 and the series reaches its conclusion this year with The Final Chapter now out in cinemas.  Video game movies have not been successful over the years, but the Resident Evil movie series has done good enough to warrant six movies over the span of 15 years. This is because the series prides itself by being full of popcorn good action and The Final Chapter is no different.  What's good about Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is that you don't need to have seen the other movies in the series to understand the story. Not to mention any links to the video games are minimal too since the movie series takes place in its own universe.  The movie's hero Alice (Milla Jovovich) has to return to Raccoon City in hopes to save the remaining humans left from the zombie apocalypse. Her mission won't be easy though because the Umbrella Corporation has a whole army of zombies to stop her and the other survivors from saving the world.  There's more layers to the story than that, but I will avoid giving away too many spoilers. The story pays homage to the first movie and fans of the film series will like how all the loose ends come together during the conclusion.  Sadly, fans of the video games will be disappointed because only Wesker (Shawn Roberts) and Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) return in Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. All of the other characters from the other movies/video games are missing in action for some reason and this movie doesn't explain where they are. Not to mention poor old Wesker doesn't get a chance to do much in this movie even though it's the last one of the series.  Speaking of characters, only Alice, Claire Redfield and the main villain are the most memorable characters in the entire movie. Every other supporting actor/character makes no impact on the film whatsoever. Everyone else is so forgettable that you won't care for them at all as they're not given any background detail or anything.    In terms of action, there's a lot of it and the fight choreography is excellent. Milla Jovovich is good at this type of stuff and it's cool to see her kick so much butt in this movie. The main disappointing thing about the action though is the way that it has been edited.  The editing is way too choppy and sometimes I couldn't see what was going on during the hand-to-hand fighting sequences. It's kind of annoying and ruined many of the action scenes for me. That being said, this movie does have a lot of action and the pace never slows down so that's a good thing at least.  Despite issues with editing and character development, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is still a fun movie to watch with popcorn and a couple of friends. The main thing I liked about the movie is the fact that the pace never slows down and I didn't get bored watching it. It may not be the best Resident Evil movie in the series, but it's a fitting conclusion to the franchise.  Verdict: 3/5 stars