Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

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nTitle: Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

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nDirector: P.W. Anderson

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nCast: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez , Shawn Roberts

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nReview:

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nThe Resident Evil series of films have been an entertainingnbunch of films for me; a guilty pleasure of sorts. They are the cinematic equivalentnof reading a comic book, the action, the storylines, the dialog all very comicnbook like, which means that it’s very  unrealistic but at the same time fun! And here’snthe weird thing, one would expect that with so many sequels these films wouldnbecome watered down versions of themselves, each getting worse then the last,nbut low and behold I loved Resident Evil Extinction (2007), and I had loads ofnfun with Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010). Hoards of zombies, hot babes withntelekinetic powers and a post apocalyptic setting…what’s not to like right? So anyways,nhere comes the fifth installment in the series, needless to say, consideringnhow much fun I had with the previous installments, I was pumped for this fifthnfilm. Did it deliver? Hell no it didn’t deliver; this is without a doubt thenworst of the Resident Evil movies! Why? Read it and weep my friends, read itnand weep.

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nThis film picks up right where the last one left off, withnUmbrella blowing up ‘Arcadia’ an installation in which  Umbrella had been conducting some experiments with humans, or something like that. But none of thatnmatters, if you think this sequel gives a damn about where the series had beenngoing up to this point, then your dead wrong. You think that this sequel willncontinue the story arc, or that it’s all going somewhere to tell a grand story,nwell it aint happening! This sequel doesn’t give  damn about previous films, it eschews withnwhatever happened previously,, twists things around and gives you an entirely different story, which if you been keeping tabs, is the way Anderson likes it. It changes things so drastically, that you’ll feel as if nothing makes sense! I’ve noticed that directornPaul W. Anderson likes to pull you in with a show stopping cliffhangers (like he did in Afterlife) so he can pull you in for thennext movie, then he goes and tells a completely different tale. In Retribution,nwe forget all about ‘Arcadia’ in the first fivenminutes of film and continue with another story in which Alice is trapped in one of UmbrellanCorporations testing facilities. It seems like the Red Queen is the one in charge of Umbrella, and she means to eradicate the entire human race. As usual, it’s up to Alice to stop her, but first, she must escape this prison! Will she make it out alive in order to save humanity?

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nTo me, this fifth installment isnjust sad because I’d been having tons of fun with this series of films up tonthis point; only to have director P.W. Anderson drop the ball completely withnthis fifth installment. Not that these movies were ever ‘deep’ or anything, I had fun with the stylish action, the zombies, the look of the film and Inwas content with the story moving along little by little amongst all the actionnand zombies. And this one has all that slow mo and action…but something feels off. With Retribution, you’ll get the feeling that director Paul W.nAnderson isn’t even trying to deliver anything remotely good, or interesting,nor even entertaining, with this film he’s simply streeetching things out to make a couple more millions. He’s certainly showing signs of fatigue when it comes tonthese films; you get the feeling he’s making them just for the money, thatnthere’s no real passion behind them. The film feels like empty calories, but hey, even that can be fun. I did enjoy the fast paced action and the ass kicking fights, but at the end of the day, it all felt kind of redundant. 

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nNumber one problem for me with this film is that there is almost no story to thisninstallment, no mystery, nothing to pull us in. The way the film is structurednis that Umbrella captures Alicenand sends her to this facility that is divided into different ‘fake’ countries.nOne part of the facility simulates New York,none simulates Russian, one China,none looks like Suburbia U.S.A.nand so forth. You see, in order for Umbrella to sell the antidote for thenT-Virus and make kajillions, they orchestrated these fake zombie attacks, andnshowed them to the world, assuring a sure sell in all countries. After seeingnthese fake zombie attacks, every country in the world would want the antidote.nBut the virus got out of their control and you all know how that went, the worldnbecame populated by zombies. So Alicenis trapped in this facility. Umbrella is trying to reprogram her because she’snthe rebel, the one who thinks for her self; but they can’t reprogram her, she’sntoo strong. She soon finds a way to escape her cell and boom, the rest of thenfilm is her trying to escape this place. In this way it feels a bit like StuartnGordon’s Fortress (1992) or David Twohy’s The Chronicles of Riddick (2004),nwhere the main characters main mission is to escape a super prison. Unfortunately, it also feels like your watching a video game, passing to the next level, and beating a boss at the end. 

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nThat would all be fine and dandy, because hey, who doesnt love a bit of empty eye candy every once in a while, sadly, there’snno reason to care for anyone. These characters are like clones, simply there tonpush the next pointless action scene to the next level. But even a video game will have more of a plot then this film. Retribution felt like filler, there’snthese boring fights that go on and on and on…there are not a lot of zombies innthis film either which is what I loved about Extinction and Afterlife, on thisnone there’s more ‘Bio Hazards’, Umbrella Corporations monstrous experiments. Paul W. Anderson is the one who gets allnthe blame for this lifeless movie, because he not only directs these, but henalso writes them. In this case, it felt as if Anderson was simply going through thenmotions, not even trying to pull off a good, involving film. Not only that, thingsnjust don’t make sense this time around. For example in all previous films,  Wesker is the main villain of the piece, onnthis one he does a 360 and becomes a good guy trying to help Alice? What the? What about Wesker’s plans with Alice? Who the hell cares, all previousnstorylines have been dropped, suddenly Wesker “doesn’t work for umbrella anymore” we now have a new villain. Forget that Alice and Wesker have been enemies for the past four films, that they had been trying to kill each other since they first met. Now suddenly Wesker needs Alice, like I said, no sense at all. Story lines are dropped and changednsimply to shock you with the next cliff hanger ending that will assure yournbutt will be there in the theater come next sequel. In that sense these films are not unlike a comic book, leaving you with that cliffhanger so you’ll buy the next issue. 

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nThe action scenes are so freaking pointless, nobody is innperil on this movie. Everything is fake or cgi, characters escape danger innzero point five seconds, there’s no tension, no feeling of dread. Huge monsters appear and are dispatched in anmatter of seconds. And the  matrix style fighting has to be given some sort of break in movies! Something new is needed, seeing characters fighting the same exact way, doing the same exact moves, gets boring and redundant, by the way, thats what most of this movie feels like, more of the same. Another bummer: characters are not developed in the least! In the least! Incan guarantee you will not care about a single character on this film. Fornexample, Andersonnactually brings back a bunch of characters from the first film only to killnthem off in minutes? Characters are disposable on this film, simply emptynvessels to kill. Case in point: Michelle Rodriguez’s participation on this film.nIt’s so pointless! Remember how in the first film she developed this friendshipnwith Alice andnyou actually cared when she turns into a zombie? On this one, she is no one.nShe’s a character with zero personality.  Why is she even here? Just to add anothernpopular actress to the film, so they can sell it more effectively. As far asnthe story goes, she is not an essential part and neither is anyone else onnboard by the way, these are just characters who shoot guns. And hey, there’snnothing wrong with brainless action, but come on, make it at the very leastninteresting! Or funny! A good example of a fun brainless movie would be TheExpendables 2 (2012)! Now that was a violent, brainless yet completely fun flick! The only saving grace for me with this movie is the always beautiful Milla Jovovich, she looks great on this one and kicks ass like there’s no tomorrow, sadly, she’s the only shinning light on this post apocalyptic abyss. 

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nTo top things off, Andersonncontinues aping other films he admires over and over again. In Extinction henwas aping Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Day of the Dead (1985), innAfterlife he aped Escape from New York (1981) and on this one he borrowsnextensively from James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) right down to having some scenesnwhere Alice is ready to escape, but has to go back to rescue a little girl fromnthe clutches of a monster. By the way, the little girl is in a cocoon, justnlike Newt in Aliens. He also borrows heavily from Zack Snyder’s Dawn of thenDead (2004). Remember that whole sequence in Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead wherenthe main female character is waking up to a suburbia filled with chaos? Anderson does it here all over again, almost exactly thensame way, but with Alice.nI’ve noticed how much Andersonndoes this in his films. He does it so shamelessly, he is kind of like ancinematic parasite, I mean one thing is to be influenced by a film and anothernis to copy whole scenes from a film you admire. Doesn’t Anderson have enough originality to come upnwith his own film?

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nSadly, this film was a huge, huge disappointment for me. Thenstory goes no where, there is no advancement, previous films seem to benignored, new storylines introduced forcibly simply to keep pumping out movies,nthere’s no flow to this film. It feels like a bunch of video games stagesnstrung together and called a film; it felt like filler to me. Even though theynsqueezed the characters of Ada Wong and Leon S. Kennedy both of which appearednin the second Resident Evil video game back in 1998, the film still feels likenfiller; like an unimportant film in a franchise. This my friends was a sequelnthat literally had nothing to say. I’ll give Anderson this, he has impressed andnentertained me with his films in the past, for example, I still love EventnHorizon (1997), and on Retribution he still shows a knack for handling effects work very well, the opening sequence which starts in slow motion reverse and then goes and shows us the way it really happened in real time again…freaking sweet. So this movie while filled with imperfections, still demonstrates Anderson has a bit of a filmmaker in him. Sadly, with Retribution he is showing signs of fatigue as a director;nI sincerely hope he hasn’t lost his love for filmmaking; for doing films thatnare worth while, for making good genre films. The ending is a grabber, it leaves the doorsnopen for what could potentially be an interesting sequel, but considering hownbad this fifth installment is, we’ll be lucky if we even get a sixth, which is  supposed to be about humanities last standnagainst the undead. Let’s hope Andersonntakes a stand against lazy, bad filmmaking as well. This film is enjoyable thrash, but I’m very demanding of my thrashy movies, here’s hoping the next and potentially final installment will be a ‘one-up’ when compared to this one. 

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nRating: 2 out of 5   

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