'Resident Evil: The Final Chapter' (2016) REview: A Pitiful and Incoherent End to the Saga
By Dan Bremner - September 15, 2026
The sixth and final film in Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil saga, and he saved the absolute worst for last. Look, I’ve never pretended these films are high art. Even in the weaker entries I’ve usually found something to enjoy with a dumb set piece, a bit of accidental style, Wesker throwing his sunglasses into the camera. That was not the case here. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is one of the most irredeemably awful films I have ever sat through. It was the first in the franchise I actually saw in the cinema (after Retribution briefly convinced me there might still be some juice left), and I still remember what a horrific disappointment it was. A decade later, it is somehow even worse than I remembered.
On top of being a bizarre and deeply unsatisfying narrative finale, it features some of the single worst editing ever committed to a major studio film. Every action scene is an incomprehensible blur of hyper-rapid cuts that don't last a second, constant camera shake and visual noise that makes Taken 3 look like Die Hard. I had no idea what was happening within any set-piece, it's catastrophic in how poorly it conveys actions on-screen, and it is genuinely migraine-inducing. By the end I felt sick. This is not an exaggeration, this film made me ill, and both Paul W.S. Anderson and Sony will be hearing from my lawyers. I went to the GP and he asked what caused the migraines, he empathetically understood and signed me off for a month.
The film opens by immediately discarding the entire cliff-hanger of Retribution. That promised White House battle with Jill, Leon and Ada? Resolved off-screen like an afterthought. Key characters are just gone, killed off screen with barely a mention. Years of (admittedly very stupid) build-up tossed aside so Alice can run around the Hive for another hundred minutes of headache. Continuity is treated with open contempt as the origins of the T-virus, the Red Queen, Isaacs’ entire status are all rewritten or contradicted whenever it’s convenient.
What remains is a repetitive, exhausting slog of poorly lit, impossible-to-follow fights, endless clone reveals that stopped meaning anything three films ago, and some of the most inane dialogue of the entire series (“the trinity of bitches” is a personal low). The supporting characters are so thin they barely register as human, which makes their inevitable deaths land with all the emotional weight of pausing a video game. Wesker is reduced to a joke and dispatched without ceremony. Isaacs returns via yet more clones and somehow becomes even more annoying. Worst of all, Ruby Rose shows up.
While Afterlife looked bland, grey and ugly, at least I could actually see what was happening. Visually this is a mess of muddy lighting, obvious green screen and CGI that frequently looks unfinished. The action has no spatial geography, no rhythm and no clarity, just a constant strobing assault on the eyes. Anderson seems to have decided that if he cuts fast enough, no one will notice there’s nothing actually worth looking at.
The plot itself is a complete shambles. It lurches from one poorly explained set piece to the next, drowning in exposition dumps, arbitrary countdowns and retcons, before wrapping Alice’s story in the most half-hearted way imaginable. And then, after almost a hundred minutes of claiming this is the end, it has the absolute gall to finish with a narration teasing more adventures for Alice because “there’s still work to do.” It does not feel like a Final Chapter in any sense. It feels like a film that ran out of money, ideas and shame at the same time.
By this point the clone twist has been used so many times it has lost all meaning. Characters die, then turn out to be clones, then those clones die, then more clones appear. It stops being a plot device and becomes a sigh-inducing contrivance that means nothing by this point. Anderson appears to have decided that the only way to write himself out of a corner is to hit the “clone” button again.
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is an aggressively awful end for the franchise and among one of the worst video-game films put to screen. A lazy, cynical and fundamentally broken finale that doesn't feel like a real ending while handing in some of the worst ever edited action I have ever had the displeasure of watching. A seizure-inducing assault on the senses in all the worst ways possible, ending this run of the franchise on its lowest note. Truly pathetic and makes some of the previous films look like masterpieces.
Come back for more Resident Evil content as we count down to Zach Cregger's 'Resident Evil' - Releasing in cinemas on September 19, 2026.
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Dan Bremner
Writer
Dan is a writer from Guildford with a love for all things genre, schlocky, and thoroughly '80s, and a part-time philanthropist.
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