X-Men Movie Franchise

With the release of Logan just around the corner, I thought I’d deliver my honest opinion on each of the X-Men films.

Before I start, I should say I am not a comic-book reader, although I have read about the source material and I have watched the 1992 animated series, which I heard, is very faithful to the comic. I should also note that these films were pretty much my first experience with X-Men, I knew of the comics and the animated series which I didn’t start watching until after seeing X-Men: The Last Stand.

This superhero franchise is about people known as mutants who are each born with a special gift, due to the next stage of evolution. This explores the theme of prejudice, humans vs. mutants. This is an allegory to real-life prejudices that have gone on the world i.e. racism, in fact the leader characters Professor Xavier and Magneto are often compared to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

The mutants and their gifts include: Wolverine – rapid-healing and retractable claws; Professor Xavier – telepathy and mind control; Magneto – manipulate metal; Jean Grey – telekinesis and telepathy; Cyclops – laser eyes; Storm – weather manipulation; Rogue – absorption of life force and mutant powers through touch; Mystique – shape shifter; Nightcrawler – teleportation; Iceman – ice powers; Shadowcat – phase through solid objects; Beast – animal-like physical attributes; Quicksilver – super speed and so much more…

X-Men

Excellent first installment to the franchise, it does an excellent job at introducing the characters and their abilities as well as the social commentary. Not the best installment but it is exactly what an X-Men movie needs to be, our X-Men battling against the Brotherhood mutants trying achieve the same thing, which is to overcome the prejudice inflicted on them from humans.

Hugh Jackman here makes his star-making performance as Wolverine and defined the role as his own, that it’s so hard to imagine who could takeover after he retires the role. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are excellent as Xavier and Magneto, when you see them together you can sense the years of conflict but also respect they had for each other, that you can see this is no standard good vs. evil story. Famke Janssen and James Marsden make a good support as Jean Grey and Cyclops, Halle Berry while she does try is miscast as Storm. The standout to me however is Anna Paquin as Rogue. Yes, I know she’s not the same tough, kick-ass woman from the comic and animated series and it’s underwhelming that she was downgraded to a vulnerable teenage girl. But I do think vulnerable can be just as interesting as strong, by stripping away all the strength we are left with a sympathetic character who is afraid of her own power, she can’t touch anyone without causing serious harm to them. They do a great job using the character to portray the tragedy of being a mutant. Anna Paquin does an amazing job at playing that soft side of the character, I felt so sorry for this character. Every time she was onscreen I just wanted to hug her, even if it killed me. Another scene-stealer is Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, a blue-scaly henchwoman to Magneto with amazing acrobatic fighting skills, Romijn demands so much attention without any dialogue, seriously she has only one line in this film.

The action is still great even some slightly dated special effects, Wolverine’s fight with Sabretooth on top of Statue of Liberty is still breathtaking.

X-Men 2 or X2

Our heroes and villains have to work together as William Stryker has a plan that will kill all the mutants in the world. It's cool seeing how all the characters interact with each other, especially Magneto and Mystique with Wolverine and Rogue after what they’ve put them through in the first film but now they have to be civil despite their detest.

Hugh Jackman gets to expand Wolverines character as he gets to explore his past and confront it. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen continue to be brilliant. Halle Berry while still miscast as Storm does a better job as she gets more to do, James Marsden sadly wasted here as Cyclops. Famke Janssen gets to more time to shine as Jean, as she is struggling to control her powers. Anna Paquin gets to continue Rogue’s struggle for human contact with her relationship with Iceman. Speaking of which Shawn Ashmore gets to more to do as Iceman, as he has to tell his family he’s a mutant. Brian Cox does a great job as Stryker, despite being an evil character there is a tragic backstory regarding his family to stop him 1-dimensional villain, Stryker's connection to Wolverine's past was brilliantly handled. But we can’t talk about this film without talking about Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler. What an awesome character, he is fun but also tragic. The heavily detailed make-up on Mystique was already impressive but they did with Nightcrawler tops it with the self-inflicted scar patterns. Cumming is absolutely amazing, it’s almost a crime that he did not reprise his role any of the sequels.

Nightcrawler’s attack at the Whitehouse is one the best scenes in the franchise.

There are other stand-out action scene like Stryker’s infiltration of the school and the fight between Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike.

X-Men: The Last Stand

While this has flaws, I do not think this is a bad film by any means. The biggest problem I have is that there are too many characters and it should’ve been longer, so some of them could’ve benefitted with more screen time. What saves this film for me is the chances it took, they had to have known a lot of fans would rage against these decisions but they were worth taking the risk for.

It didn’t bother me that certain characters were killed in the first half, not only is this one of the few superhero films with the balls to kill off big characters but it also raises the stakes.

Yes it does kind of suck that Mystique loses her powers and Magneto’s abandonment of her is heartbreaking. The scene is successful, not only does it make you feel sorry for a villain but the sight of Rebecca Romijn naked does not detract from it.

Rogue taking the cure has annoyed a lot of the fans, I’m not bothered so much because her tragic arc justifies her doing so. The film doesn’t set out that taking the cure was the right thing or wrong thing, it was just a decision that has to be respected, as she says “It’s what I wanted”. It should also noted there is an episode in the animated where Rogue was considering getting her powers taken away which she didn’t go ahead with. So I praise this film taking that chance with her going through with it.

Hugh Jackman is awesome as usual, as well as the returning cast Patrick Stewart, Rebecca Romijn, Anna Paquin, Shawn Ashmore, James Marsden. Both Ian Mckellen and Halle Berry get the chance to upgrade their performances as Magento and Storm. New to the cast – Kelsey Gramer as Beast is absolutely perfect in the role, Ellen Page as Shadowcat, Ben Foster as Angel whom is wasted but is a great casting choice, Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut. It is Famke Janssen however who steals the show as Jean Grey and the Dark Phoenix. There’s been a lot of complaints the Phoenix saga wasn't done justice, honestly I didn’t know anything about it before seeing the film so as a first-timer I enjoyed this plot. It was an interesting look at multiple personalities and how far someone can be pushed to breaking point. It’s a look at consequences of taking regretful actions- Professor X, trying psychically contain the Phoenix, thinking he’s doing the right thing but ends up making it worse. Famke Janssen doesn’t overplay it with shouting or laughing, she plays it with subtlety and successes at being both scary and sympathetic.

The whole climax is fantastic from Magneto moving the Golden Gate Bridge to Wolverine’s tough decision at the end. The Grey house scene with Phoenix vs Xavier, Wolverine vs Juggernaut and Storm vs Callisto while the house rises is amazing, had me on the edge my seat- easily my favourite scene in the whole franchise.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

This is the only X-Men film I really don’t like, I don’t see any point to this prequel. The film starts off fine from Logan discovering his claws for the first time as a child to his relationship to his brother to meeting Stryker. But from then on it all goes downhill. The scene where he was injected with adamantium was incredibly underwhelming, I understand it would be too scary to show to a general audience. But it’s heavily toned down compared to the very brief but intense flashbacks from the first two films, that it doesn’t match up at all. Also the trauma he would’ve suffered was hardly portrayed, I always thought the mass amount of trauma from such a procedure would’ve caused his amnesia, but no! There’s more plot so, Wolverine just gets over it as we another plot to go through. The said plot is pretty much just a rehash of X-Men 2, followed by the dumbest explanation how he loses his memory. Apart from a bit of the first act nothing about this prequel adds anything to Wolverine’s backstory that was worth knowing or that we already learnt from X-Men 2. Since Wolverine never remembers the events of the film – then why should we?

There are no stakes in this in this film, not only do we know where Stryker’s plot is going but also we are never worried about Wolverine since he can’t die therefore no danger or threat.

Anything to like? I did like Liev Shreiber as Sabretooth and the film did provide something for Ryan Reynold’s eventual true depiction of Deadpool to stamp on.

X-Men: First Class

I really like this film but I disagree with the reviews that call this the best and even calling it The Dark Knight of the X-Men films.

This has created a lot of plot holes to the first three films, that it was very difficult to determine if this was a genuine prequel or a proper reboot.

Jennifer Lawrence and Nicolas Hault are very talented and are good choices as young Mystique and Beast, but the writing for the characters are inconsistent that it makes it very difficult connect them to adult versions played by Rebecca Romijn and Kelsey Grammer.

James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are truly what keeps this film going, they take the characters of Professor X and Magneto and make them their own while still honoring Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen.

Plus Wolverine has an awesome cameo.

The Wolverine

Now this is how to do a spin-off for Wolverine, it fixes the big problem – it puts Wolverine in danger.

Hugh Jackman has been the show stealer for all the previous installments, even his small cameo in First Class was awesome enough to steal an entire film. But this is Hugh Jackman’s best portrayal of the character to date. Apparently the Japan saga in the comics that this film is based on is Hugh Jackman’s favourite and it really shows. It was great to see these multiple sides to the character that we haven’t seen before. The biggest problem though is that it tries to be a stand-alone while still trying to connect itself to the series, one minute it’s serious and gritty and the next it’s silly and over the top, that at times it feels like we are watching two films at the same time.

X-Men: Days Of Future Past

By far the best of the franchise! This is an example of a sequel that takes flaws and plot holes of the previous installment(s) and turn them into positives. It’s also usually a bad sign to introduce time-travel this late into a franchise, but it works.

The future is in a terrible place as humanity is under control of the Setinels, robots designed to kill mutants. Their only hope is to go back to the 1970’s and stop Mystique from assassinating Boliver Trask, the creator. How? Shadowcat’s power can now phase other people’s minds through time, they send older Wolverine’s mind to younger Wolverine, Hugh Jackman plays both as Wolverine ages slowly.

James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender get to expand their roles even further, especially McAvoy as Xavier has hit rock-bottom.  Jennifer Lawrence and Nicolas Hault get to show their talents this time as Mystique and Beast, especially Jennifer this is where I truly sympathized with Mystiques character but also gets plenty of fight scenes to be almost as awesome Romijn’s Mystique.

Of the original cast returning besides Hugh Jackman, we have Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Halle Berry, Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore and many more. They are all welcome returns, sadly they don’t get as much screen time as before but they still have their moments.

New to the cast is Peter Dinklage as Boliver Trask, for such a small guy it’s so believable how he has so much power. Evan Peters as Quicksilver is excellent and has one of the best slow-motion actions ever.

The contrast of the future and the past is excellent; the future is pretty dark and cold while the past is quite light and warm.

The Rogue Cut is the true version of the film, not only does add back in Anna Paquin’s Rogue, whom doesn't appear in the theatrical cut, but it helps flesh out other characters, especially the original cast and adds more action as well.

X-Men: Apocalypse

I was skeptical about this actually because after Days Of Future Past I wanted to see a continuation of the new future with the original cast not the new cast. The reviews for this film were also not very complimentary. But I was thoroughly entertained by this. I thought the younger cast were excellent Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, Tye Sheridan as Cyclops, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler and Alexandra Shipp as Storm do fantastic jobs at capturing their predecessor portrayals while still making them their own. Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse was very menacing, maybe a little 2-dimensional but still awesome. The returning cast are great as usual, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicolas Hault have slightly less to do, Evan Peters as Quicksilver however gets more to do. Rose Byrne makes a welcome return as Moira, while Olivia Munn and Ben Hardy as Psylocke and Angel are good with the very little they have to do. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are again top-notch as Xavier and Magneto.

The whole climax was amazing and every one of the characters had their fair contributions to it. Probably not the most thought provoking of the X-Men films but certainly one of the more entertaining ones.

Also Wolverine has another cameo, one that puts the Origins movie to shame.

I’m not going to be discussing Deadpool as I feel that’s a topic for a separate review. I know it goes without saying but, it’s awesome!

This is certainly one of my favourite superhero movie franchises, dare I say I love this even more than the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Actually yes I do. Not saying these are better movies, I’m just saying these connected with me more on a personal level.

Resident Evil Movie Franchise

We all have our guilty pleasures and there’s no shame in that, after all we all prefer good food but we still like going to our preferred fast-food chain. These are my McDonalds. There’s no doubt these are bad films, they make no sense but they entertain me so much, I could watch them all back-to-back with a six pack and a batch of junk food and enjoy Milla Jovovich fighting zombies and monsters with over-stylised action, her interchangeable sidekicks, pretty locations and bad one-liners. And the day would be over before I know it.

To make it clear, I've never played the games; therefore I look at these as just movies in their own right and not as video-game adaptations. It certainly doesn’t matter if you played the games or not since the films all focus on a character, Alice, whom doesn’t exist in the games, and the characters from the games appear as supporting roles to Alice’s story. I’m sure those characters are more fleshed out in the games.

All six entries star Milla Jovovich as Alice, a woman who knows nothing about her past other than she headed security for the Umbrella Corporation whom she attempted to take down after discovering their evil secrets. She lost her memory when the T-Virus breaks loose, however throughout the franchise she continues to fight against Umbrella and the monsters they created.

These certainly aren’t just zombie movies, there are various monsters such as Lickers, Nemesis, Axman and many others. We also get zombie dogs and crows, the zombies themselves evolve as the films go on they start off slow and get faster and some even grow tentacles out of their mouths. However it’s not the zombies and monsters that are the true enemies it’s Umbrella themselves with their crazy experiments and inventions; the clones, the simulations, the laser corridors, the AI Red and White Queens, the mind controlling scarabs. With all that the biggest threats to Alice are the humans behind Umbrella particularly Dr. Isaacs (Iain Glenn) and Wesker (Shawn Roberts).

In each film Alice is supported by a group of characters, however her main ally in each is always female. In the first film we have Rain (Michelle Rodriguez), the second film Jill (Sienna Guillory), the fifth film has Ada (Li Bingbing) with Rain and Jill returning in villainess roles, her most frequent ally however is Claire (Ali Larter) who appears in the third, fourth and sixth installment. What I like so much these female allies is that I never feel like they hold back Alice’s character or try to one-up her, they support her just as she supports them. It’s also refreshing to have a mostly female-lead franchise where the women don’t talk about dating or even men in any sense.

Alice does have her share of male allies too such as Matt (Eric Mabius) in the first film, Carlos in the second and third, Chris (Wentworth Miller) in the forth and Luther (Boris Kodjoe) in the fourth and fifth. Out of all the male allies only one of them serves as a sort of love interest, Carlos, and even then they only share one moment in that regard which does not feel out of place at all, there’s even a bit of an alternate reality scene with them as married couple in the fifth movie which was kind of sweet. Apart from that however this far from a dating franchise.

Here are brief synopses of each film along with my opinions on them.

Resident Evil (2002)

A special military unit fights a powerful, out-of-control supercomputer and hundreds of scientists who have mutated into flesh-eating creatures after a laboratory accident.

Excellent start to the series. I like the mystery aspect as it keeps you guessing what’s happening and who should be trusted. The underground Hive is a great setting, offers many locations for some cool action scenes i.e. the laser corridor, and at times offers a claustrophobic environment.

Milla Jovovich does keep you invested in a character that is essentially a blank-slate, although it does also help she spends the whole film in that hot red dress. Michelle Rodriguez is a great support as Rain, a commando who tough as nails, full of sarcasm and whom you’d never want to cross paths with.

I love the little nods to Alice in Wonderland, not just the name of our protagonist but the name of the mansion is called “Looking Glass House”, Alice goes underground through mirrored-doors, we see a white rabbit being experimented on and of course we have the Red Queen who actually succeeds in cutting someone’s head off. Also the Red Queen being an AI is clearly a reference to Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey. And there’s also direct homage George Romero’s (the king of zombies) Day of the Dead with the “The Dead Walk” newspaper headline.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)

Alice awakes in Raccoon City, only to find it has become infested with zombies and monsters. With the help of Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivera, Alice must find a way out of the city before it is destroyed by a nuclear missile.

After spending the first film entirely underground, it was a refreshing change of pace to take place in a city as it makes the locations limitless such as a church, a school and also freedom to use motorbike and helicopter stunts.

The title is very fitting as this is the only entry where the apocalypse play out, the first film was pre-apocalypse and the following four were post-apocalypse. It was great to briefly see the normal city suddenly decay as the zombies become loose and the whole city is in panic.

Sienna Guillory is a good support as Jill, not that I’m complaining but it’s very questionable why she’s dressed to fight in mini-skirt and tube top. Oded Fehr is great as Carlos, he and Jovovich have great chemistry with the very little dialogue they share. Jared Harris is very good Dr. Ashford as well as young Sophie Vavasseur as his daugher Angela. Iain Glenn is also great in his brief role as the evil Dr. Isaacs.

Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)

Survivors of the Raccoon City catastrophe travel across the Nevada desert, hoping to make it to Alaska. Alice joins the caravan and their fight against the evil Umbrella Corp.

Cool idea setting this movie in the desert, which leads to the ruins of Las Vegas.

This is definitely the coolest look of Alice, with her scruffy tied-back hair, her duster coat, brown shorts and holster straps. This is also the only film where we get to see "Super-Alice" in her full glory and it was awesome to see. 

Oded Fehr reprise his role as Carlos and still has great chemistry with Jovovich, and has even more to do. Iain Glenn is also back as the evil Dr. Isaacs and also gets to more with the role. Here we are introduced to Ali Larter as Claire who leads a convoy of survivors with Carlos, she’s a welcome addition and would go on to be Alice’s most frequent ally. Which I’m glad as I feel Larter is a stronger actress than Guillory and Claire is just a more well-rounded character whom I wouldn’t mind leading a spin-off movie. Another nice addition is Spencer Locke as a teenage girl who calls herself K-Mart because that’s where Claire found her.

The infected crows scene is one of the best moments in the franchise, and clearly an homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

While still out to destroy the evil Umbrella Corporation, Alice joins a group of survivors living in a prison surrounded by the infected who also want to relocate to the mysterious but supposedly unharmed safe haven known only as Arcadia.

I will say this is the most visually stunning out of all films in the franchise. From the Umbrella facility in Tokyo, the lakes in Alaska, the prison surrounded by the cities in ruins to the Arcadia ship. With some glorious action scenes like the Alice clone attack and Claire vs Axeman, all done in glorious slow-motion.

Alice in this film loses her powers, which I did miss but they needed to add some vulnerability back to the character after she basically became indestructible. Ali Larter as Claire is back, who is also at a vulnerable state as she has memory loss and her convoy is missing. It was great to see these two women give each other the strength they need and also put their trust in each other. Wentworth Miller joins as a prisoner in the jail, Chris, who is Claire’s long-lost brother whom of course she doesn’t recognise. Sadly they don’t share much dialogue, which is a shame I could imagine Larter and Miller making a great duo, they at least get a cool action scene as the siblings take on Wesker.

This used to be my favourite of the franchise but I have to admit not much really happens story-wise, there are some revelations sure but not so much progression. Still style-over-substance is not always a bad thing and there are plenty of show-don’t-tell moments that make up for it.

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Alice fights alongside a resistance movement to regain her freedom from an Umbrella Corporation testing facility.

This is the weakest entry to the series sure, but it’s certainly no less entertaining than the others.

It was nice to see many cast members from the first two films return, all playing against their original roles. First we have Sienna Guillory back as Jill looking completely different (although dressed no less skimpy) who is under mind control by Umbrella. Then we get Colin Salmon, Oded Fehr and Michelle Rodriguez return as evil clones of One, Carlos and Rain. Rodriguez and Fehr along with Jovovich get to play clones as regular people living in the suburbs, with Alice and Carlos as a married couple with a deaf daughter.

But just like my problem with Afterlife nothing really happens to push the story forward apart from a cool setup for the Final Chapter at the end. While the visuals are pretty I will it looks a little too clean for a post-apocalyptic movie, it makes sense since the whole movie takes in the Umbrella facility with simulated locations but personally I wanted to see more of the outer locations. 

Many of the additional characters such as Leon (Johann Urb) and Ada (Li Bingbing) were clearly there just as fan-service for the game players, being a non-gamer myself it was still very noticeable to me. They’re not awful additions but I didn’t like that they came pretty much at the expense of Chris and Claire. 

Alice’s relationship to her ‘daughter’ Becky is clearly supposed to be an homage Ripley and Newt from Aliens. There’s a scene that’s a direct homage which kind of feels out of place, where Becky is captured by a Licker and which traps he in goo for pretty much no reason and Alice is rescues her with ease. But for what it’s worth Aryana Engineer is pretty talented for a young actress, so much so that they rewrote the character as partially deaf as Engineer is in real life.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

Alice returns to where the nightmare began: The Hive in Raccoon City, where the Umbrella Corporation is gathering its forces for a final strike against the only remaining survivors of the apocalypse.

Saved the best for last, what a way to end a series! This is the most intense and gritty out of all the films. Forget all the colourful visuals and slow-mo action from the last two films, this film is dark and the action is so much faster. Even Alice is looking rough, spending the whole film dirty and scratched up. This is really the first time in the franchise we get to properly experience the post-apocalyptic world, since Extinction is set entirely in the desert, Afterlife we only see bits of it and Retribution is set entirely in Umbrella facility. So it's great to see Alice in the ruins of the White House heading back to what is left of Racoon City.

Ali Larter makes a very welcome return as Claire, her absence from the last film was noticeable. Although she has slightly less to do this time, she’s still very much in on the action and offers the emotional support Alice needs. Iain Glen reprises his role as the evil Dr. Isaacs and almost steals the show. He does almost come at the expense of Shawn Roberts as Wesker, who is back but feels severely wasted this time. The additional cast aren’t that special, Eoin Macken as Doc is the strongest of the bunch and Ruby Rose does have a lot of presence with the very little she has to do, the rest are pretty blink-you-miss. Paul and Milla’s real life daughter Ever Gabo Anderson takes over the role of the Red Queen and she is very good and the resemblance to her mother is uncanny.

This really delivers on a lot of nostalgia for the first film and brought closure to the story it setup. Alice discovering the ultimate truth was pretty emotional and Milla Jovovich put her heart and soul into this. What an amazing moment seeing Alice side-by-side with the Red Queen and Alicia, also played by Jovovich in age makeup.

The frequently asked question is this really the end? I think so. The film does end with Alice’s narration saying that it could take years for the anti-virus to spread across the world and her work is not done, which suggests sequel-bait. I don’t see that however, Umbrella is no more and she has no more human enemies to fight. I think Paul WS Anderson and Milla just wanted end Alice’s story with her still fighting because that’s what she does best. Another big suggestion this the end, all the previous films ends on a cliffhanger with the camera zooming out while this one ends with a close-up of Alice’s face and zooms in on her eye.

So the real big question that this film leaves us with is what happened to the other characters; Angela, Chris, K-Mart, Jill, Leon, Becky and Ada? Well it’s kind of implied that they’re all dead. It’s believed Alice killed Angela when she had no control of her powers, that’s why she isolated herself all that time between the second and third film. K-Mart was most likely killed along with the other people during the Arcadia attack. When Claire said she got captured after the Arcadia attack, she got into a helicopter crash that implies Chris had died. And of course it’s highly possible Jill, Leon, Ada and Becky were killed during the attack on the White House after being betrayed by Wesker. Since many of them are characters from the game, I guess they didn’t want to upset the fans by killing them especially off-screen. Could be possible they’re still alive and are having their own survival adventures like they do in the games (since I don’t play the games I don’t actually know if that works continuity wise, but it’s a theory). Like I said at the start, these characters are only there to serve Alice’s story. Also technically we don’t really get closure on Claire, sure we see her alive and well at the end but then we see Alice ride off on her own, so where’s Claire now? Maybe she’s gone off to find Chris and K-Mart, and maybe Alice going off to find Becky and the others.

Here’s a summary of what has been revealed and a tie-up of loose ends. Dr. James Marcus was the creator of the T-virus while Dr. Charles Ashford was the creator of the anti-virus. Alicia Marcus had progeria which inspired her father to create the T-virus to reverse the effects and he recorded her likeness and voice before her condition worsened, however Dr. Marcus discontinued his research on the T-virus after an incident occurred and was murdered by both Dr. Isaacs and Wesker for disagreeing their proposal to mass produce the virus for power purposes. Dr. Isaacs used the likeness and voice of young Alicia Marcus to create an artificial intelligence known as the Red Queen that was programmed to ease his workload by giving her the responsibilities of controlling Umbrella. Dr. Charles Ashford took the T-Virus to experiment on it for his daughter Angela to cure her disability and doing so created the anti-virus. Alice’s clone army delayed Umbrella’s development because they caused a great deal of damage at some headquarters. Claire was abducted during the Arcadia attack but escaped when the plane crashed. Wesker faked his betrayal of Umbrella and the Red Queen’s mass kill to lead Alice to a trap so he could personally kill her and the gang. Wesker injected Alice with a fake serum to make her believe that she regained her powers so he could gain her trust and kill her when she was caught off-guard. Umbrella’s true agenda was biblical-inspired "Noah's Ark for the rich" as they say and Dr. Isaacs was the mastermind from the very beginning. Umbrella developed an airborne version of the anti-virus to use it to destroy the infection after humanity has been wiped out. The Hive housed thousands of rich and powerful Umbrella employees inside cryogenic chambers waiting for the cleansing to finish and then repopulate Earth. Alice is in fact a clone of Alicia Marcus, not just any clone but the first clone that represented Alicia as the woman she could never become as her progeria aged her rapidly from a little girl to an old woman. The Red Queen granted Alice with Alicia’s memories of her childhood memories so Alice could go on to live a full life that Alicia never could.

So all in all, I love this franchise. I’m so glad I stuck with this franchise over the years, patiently waiting for the next not when or where they were going to end and to get six entries of a complete story. Not art or the best films ever made by any means but my ultimate guilty pleasure.