Major Timothy "Abel" Cain is the primary antagonist of Resident Evil: Apocalypse. He is portrayed by German actor Thomas Kretschmann.
History[]
Pre-film background[]
Born in Germany and raised in the United States, Cain spent most of his life serving in the US Army. His experiences in the Gulf War instilled in him a belief that life is cheap and people are completely expendable. At some point, Cain retired from military service and became a high-ranking employee of Umbrella, taking command of the corporation's paramilitary forces. In 2002, he was responsible for re-opening the Hive and unleashing the T-virus upon Raccoon City.
Apocalypse[]
During the Raccoon City outbreak, Cain was in charge of securing all key Umbrella personnel and resources before the virus completely overwhelmed the city. He also awakened Alice, who had been experimented on in Raccoon Hospital, and allowed her to roam free through the city so that he could monitor her abilities and her potential as a bio-weapon. His men established blockades to screen civilians attempting to leave town for infection and ordered all exits to be sealed once the infection reached Raven's Gate Bridge. Cain then ordered the crowds to be forcefully dispersed by authorizing the use of live ammunition.
As the level of contamination reached its peak, Cain ordered the activation of Umbrella's latest bio-weapon: Nemesis. Nemesis was sent out into the ruined city to hunt down Alice to test the abilities of both combatants. At the same time, Cain closely observed the activities of Dr. Ashford, who was aiding Alice and other survivors by talking to them via hacking the city's phone lines.
Near the end of the film, Cain had Nemesis recalled to City Hall as Alice and her companions headed there to board the last chopper out of Raccoon before a nuclear missile destroyed the entire city. When everyone was assembled, Cain forced Alice to fight Nemesis one-on-one and motivated her by threatening to kill her friends and started by shooting Dr. Ashford, despite the fact that he was an Umbrella asset and that the others meant nothing to Cain. Alice and Nemesis fought and Alice gained the upper hand, but after she realised that the monster was in fact Matt Addison - the only survivor of the Hive besides herself - she refused to finish him off. Cain urged Alice to cooperate, stating that she had been injected with the T-virus and that she had somehow fully adapted to it, hence her newfound abilities. Alice refused to be Cain's guinea pig and so Cain ordered his troops to pull out and ordered the launch of the nuclear device that would sanitize Raccoon City. However, things went awry when Nemesis rebelled against him, its own consciousness having regained control of its body and started attacking the major's troops. In the end, Cain's troops had all been killed, Nemesis had been crushed by a crashing chopper, and a massive horde of zombies had breached the barricades surrounding City Hall and were making there way to the helipad. Cain himself had boarded his chopper only to be punched out by survivor L.J. Wayne. As the chopper lifted off with Alice and co. on board, Alice dragged Cain to the open cabin door. Cain told her that killing him wouldn't set things right, but Alice said it was a start before dumping him out of the chopper.
Death[]
After Cain had been thrown out of the chopper, he broke his leg as he hit the concrete. Surrounded by zombies and unable to run, he panicked and came to realize that life was not cheap at all. Life was precious and he wanted to keep his. In his terror, he pulled out his gun and shot several zombies advancing on him, even though he had no hope of killing all of them. He decided to turn the gun on himself, but because he had spent a bullet on Dr. Ashford earlier, he had already emptied the clip and had no bullets left to end his life swiftly. In an ironic twist, the re-animated body of Dr. Ashford was the first zombie to bite into Cain as he was overwhelmed and devoured by the mass of undead.
From the Umbrella chopper, Alice looked down as Cain had vanished from sight, completely buried under a growing pile of zombies.