Cinematic Perfection
"Is that all you got cause if it is, I'm going to have to kill you."
A breathtaking and an emotional send-off to an amazing franchise in which each film differs from each other structurally and artistically all while following a complex narrative line, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is a ferocious and an incredible ending to the long journey that the beautiful Paul W.S. Anderson has given us. It's a phenomenal retreat of a personal and emotional experience of humanity from its notion through memories and most importantly, remembering what makes us human. Furthermore, the film takes interest in its predecessors while occupying a sense of special iconography that is abused by the Umbrella Corporation in which the powerful and corrupt are seen with a perfect depiction of causing disasters for their own benefits.
In The Final Chapter, Paul W.S. Anderson has perfected his motion of image and moving through image while the case of style is substance is eminent as the film digs deeper into the many layers and concepts of Retribution all while crossing its anti-capitalist values and a striped element of religion. He wastes no time and spends it on other aspects for there is no filler to be found. The film moves through these levels at a rapidly fast pace while being dense and heavy as it builds upon Alice's arc that Anderson constantly engages in. His perspective is clear for The Final Chapter is about class conflict and its inevitabilities, even while pushing away from an artificial realm and towards reality.
Along with Afterlife and Retribution, Anderson frames this dazzling and powerful film with artifice, levels, and layers which are similar to what a video game may be. His aesthetic qualities clearly show through the relentless direction and radical changes and while the film may seem confusing at first, it's not difficult to follow at all. Each and every scene explores the many different aspects that make The Final Chapter a complete vision from the intensity of the score to the unbelievable speed of each moving moment through sound. All of these aspects function in their own particular and precise way which leaves different impacts on the audience as Anderson imprints image into our minds.
Even after completely ridding the world of Hollywood in Afterlife and Cinema in Retribution, the director continues to violate the idea of image itself all while taking place at the end of Alice's story and the concept of a "character" through striking set-pieces and levels. This exciting experience is always moving and finding new heights as Anderson utilizes what is and isn't reality for each shot is no longer than 10 seconds in order to keep the adrenaline and rise of tension running. The film is constantly advancing plot and story wise through action instead of dialogue and while there is a significant improvement in the screenplay, it isn't the point.
Sound and structure are brilliantly infused together to continue Alice's difficult and tiring journey that essentially makes The Final Chapter and coming of age film as the concept of a "character" are reborn in which copies are present. Anderson shows Alice maturing and being empowering through her life that circles in on Milla Jovovich and her life with Anderson.
After all these years, Alice has been treated as property as well as a product of greed and powerful corporations, even as the editing reflects her mind and abilities during each scene through counter cuts and a world of controlled chaos that obliterates sound and converts each scene into hypnotic hysteria. Her life is shown through the destructive scales of The Final Chapter, unlike Anderson's previous works, and remains effective as Paul Haslinger's amazing score serves as a functioning aspect that is intense and powerful when it needs to be.
It's the way the key interactions are handled and placed that creates the film through spectacular visual effects and bringing us back to reality, even after the previous efforts focuses on an artificial world. Visuals are forced upon each visual that fire past us with each cut. Coming to the one particularly clear perspective of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, the editing is both precise and dirty as it contains articulately composed slow-motions shots and presents Alice as our human center of a "character."
The cross-cutting editing represents Alice's racing mind through each moment in and out of image at a frantic pace while messing with the viewer for its filled with traditionally realist flourishes that include an increased emphasis on handheld photography. This is followed by the sense of an act of poetry as the goes along with its precise cuts of empowerment which is extremely similar to the "character" of Alice herself.
The element of characters being born and dying clearly shows in this compassionate piece of art that moves across the thought of corporations and industries for its strongly anti-fascist as tensions rise while Alice constantly collides with Dr. Isaacs when she only seeks the truth of her past and future. As we have seen in Retribution, Paul W.S. Anderson builds worlds and set-pieces like no other and it completely pays off in this emotional, yet beautiful ending as his new world is a tragic and paranoia-fueled representation of a world enslaved by big businesses and organized religion.
Power and the singularity of a character journey are formed as the truth is revealed for Alice achieved a sense of fighting long ago that consolidates her as an icon of power and discovery. Now, Alice is coming to the end of her journey and it has left me in tears from its brown townyzation of the society and multitude of levels it explores to its success from a sentient consciousness as Alice is running out of time.
Successfully, even after all this, Anderson perfectly fills in plot holes and ties up loose ends from the early beginning of this masterful Franchise all while expanding the universe and bringing it to an incredible conclusion. Overall, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is an entrancing piece of art that certainly is cinematic perfection (even after destroying Cinema in Retribution) for it's the perfect, powerful, and emotional conclusion to a long-running franchise built on Alice's journey and humanity itself.
Thank you, Paul W.S. Anderson & Milla Jovovich, for giving us the ultimate franchise that flies over the minds of many modern moviegoers and critics as Cinema would be an empty place without you.
What a beautiful film...
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