Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016): Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

The full plot runs from the origin of Umbrella to the destruction of the Hive, and it ends with Alice alive and carrying the antivirus in her own body. The film starts in the past, when Umbrella's founder, Dr. James Marcus, tries to save his dying daughter Alicia with an experimental virus project. A treated child turns into a zombie, and Marcus shuts the project down. His partner, Dr. Isaacs, has Wesker kill Marcus, adopts Alicia and takes control of the company.

In the present, Alice is sent to infiltrate the Hive and is captured by Isaacs. She learns that the Isaacs she killed earlier in the saga was a clone. She escapes and teams up with a group of survivors that includes Claire Redfield. They fight off Isaacs's convoy and free captives, but Cobalt dies in the attack. Inside the Hive, Wesker releases mutated dogs that kill Christian, and Abigail and Razor are later killed by traps.

The Red Queen then shows Alice a recording of Isaacs's plan. He intends to release the virus worldwide and wipe out humanity while the rich and powerful sleep in cryogenic storage. Doc turns out to be Umbrella's spy, and Wesker captures Claire. A capsule opens to reveal an aged Alicia Marcus, who opposed the plan, and Isaacs tells Alice that she is Alicia's clone.

Alicia fires Wesker, the Red Queen crushes his leg in a door, and Claire kills Doc. Alice kills Isaacs with a grenade, but he revives and captures her. A second Isaacs clone then kills the original, believing he is the real one, before the undead devour him. Alice releases the antivirus, which kills the zombies around her, and she passes out. Wesker drops his deadman's switch and destroys himself, Alicia, the Hive and the sleeping elite.

The ending of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is that Alice survives because the antivirus only cleared the T-virus from her own body. The Red Queen then gives her Alicia's childhood memories, so Alice finally has a past. The antivirus will take years to spread across the world, and Alice vows to keep fighting the undead until then.

In my opinion, the memory transfer is the most interesting choice in the saga, because it answers a question the films had asked since 2002: who is Alice? It could be argued that it is also a retcon. Alice began as an amnesiac waking in a bathroom in Resident Evil (2002), came out of captivity changed by the virus in Apocalypse, and was one of many failed clones dumped in the opening of Extinction. Retribution then gave her a suburban housewife life with a deaf daughter, Becky. Revealing her as Alicia Marcus's clone means one scene has to patch a lot of history. Perhaps it works best if you read it as the Red Queen, the AI that guides her through the Hive, giving something back.

There is a neat piece of casting behind it. Ever Anderson plays both young Alicia and the Red Queen's child form, so the machine that has taunted Alice since the first film wears the face of the girl she was cloned from. That being said, Alice was created for the films and is not in the games, so this is the series settling an origin the games never had to answer.

The bleak part is the cost. Wesker drops his deadman's switch and destroys the Hive, Alicia and the sleeping elite in one blast, which removes the villains but leaves the world overrun. Isaacs dies twice in the same sequence: Alice kills him with a grenade, he revives, and a second clone who believes he is the real one kills the original before the undead devour him. It echoes the earlier reveal that the Isaacs she killed before was a clone, and it is a tidier piece of villain bookkeeping than Afterlife managed with Wesker.

There is no clean victory, only a cure already in motion. Compared with the cliffhangers that closed Extinction, Afterlife and Retribution, it is a modest, human sized finish to a loud saga.