Lots and lots of spoilers follow…
The talk of the town is M. Night Shyalaman’s Split, which carries an interesting post-credit button that ties it directly to Unbreakable. I thought it was a pretty cool fan moment, but one that was lost by general audiences. Since its release, every single site (including ours) has boasted the “twist”, which I put in parentheses because it’s not. Split is a fantastic thriller that’s carried by James McAvoy’s astoundingly overlooked Oscar-worthy performance…not some random twist that makes or breaks the film (like with Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense).
I bring up Split because I’m pretty sick of seeing the word “twist” associated with it, which brings me to a film that nobody is talking about: Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter.
Sony Screen Gems’ Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, which opened this weekend and got its ass kicked by Split, ends the franchise that began with Anderson’s 2002 video game adaptation. After six films, and two trilogies, the franchise concluded Alice’s (Milla Jovovich) battle against Umbrella. Unlike many others, this saga ended with a titanic bombshell that’s bizarrely being overlooked.
Even though the Resident Evil franchise is not even close to being on par with Star Wars, it now has its own “I am your father” moment.
The basic structure of a movie carries three acts and a climax, the latter of which is more of a payoff staged by earlier moments in the story. A little known fact about Anderson is that he writes the sequel title on the last page of every single screenplay he turns in; he’s always thinking about what’s next, which makes me wonder if he’s been planning this grand finale since 2002? The biggest climax of all…
In the 2002 film, Alice must fight her way out of the Hive after the T-virus is “accidentally” released by Umbrella. Through several sequels, Alice battles the evil corporation and its leaders, Dr. Isaacs and Albert Wesker, not to mention hordes of the infected. Umbrella is powered by an A.I. known as the Red Queen, who appears to be one of the franchise’s big bads. The films are honestly not all that interesting…until The Final Chapter‘s big reveal.
What we learn is two-fold: Umbrella’s founder created the T-virus to save his daughter, who has a disease that causes her to age rapidly (a reverse Benjamin Button). He recorded every moment of her young life in order to preserve her young spirit as an A.I., which becomes the Red Queen. In the meantime, Dr. Isaacs goes mad with power, killing his partner, and taking control of Umbrella and his dying daughter. The plan? To wipe Earth’s slate clean by creating their own “Great Flood”. Yes, Umbrella purposely released the T-virus, and has been hibernating deep within the Hive for all of these years. But that’s not all… we’re introduced to an old woman who is also behind the apocalypse. Anderson drops the first bomb as the old woman awakes from hibernation…she cloned herself…and Alice is said clone! But that’s not the “holy shit” moment. Anderson’s second huge reveal is that this old woman is the diseased daughter, which makes her both the Red Queen and Alice!
On the surface The Final Chapter (and the entire Resident Evil franchise) is all popcorn, but deep down it’s a heartfelt conclusion that’s the soul of the entire franchise. Seeing the three Alices lined up as “the holy trinity of badasses” was the icing on the cake, but the tearjerker moment is when Alice gets the childhood she never had and the doctor got the daughter he always wanted.
While this may have been obvious to some, I found this twist to be “Rosebud” nuclear, and one that gives credence to the entire saga. Forgetting that every single Resident Evil is barely passable (Anderson is a terrible director), this has got to be one of the single biggest twists in the history of cinema. How we’re talking about a button at the end of Split over this is beyond me, although it’s hard to gain the attention and acclaim deserved when talking about a sixth film in a tired and worn out franchise.
With that said, Anderson still leaves Alice’s story open to yet another sequel, you know, just in case…
