I like look of trailer a film I'd like to see but maybe wait till it comes out on DVD Christmas present maybe
Resident Evil: Retribution
Release Date: September 28th 2012
Cert: 15
Dir: Paul W.S. Anderson, Written By: Paul W.S. Anderson
Cast: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, Kevin Durand, Boris Kodjoe, Bingbing Li, Oded Fehr and Colin Salmon
Plot Summary
Alice (Jovovich) awakens deep in the heart of the Umbrella Corporation's testing facility and must fight to escape the wrath of the Red Queen and join up with a rescue team sent in by the resistance.
Review
As a fan of the first four Resident Evil movies and a lifelong zombie nut, I went in to viewing Resident Evil: Retribution with raised expectations. Following an entertaining but comparatively lacklustre third entry, Part four – Resident Evil: Afterlife was a return to form in terms of action on a grander scale and saw the return of Paul W.S. Anderson directing as opposed to merely writing for the first time since the original movie.
Unfortunately, this film is abysmal. What little plot this film has is wafer thin, the script veers from cheesy (but obviously meant-to-be-cool) one-liners to almost entire scenes dedicated to exposition. Most criminally of all is that despite still knowing how to exquisitely frame his beautiful wife, Anderson has seemingly forgotten that the character of Alice is supposed to be cool.
The action scenes in Retribution lack any real dynamism, with obvious stunt doubles and poor choreography further contributing to the underwhelming experience. The action is actually a big part of the problem, as there is just so much that the story has barely any time to develop beyond the chase/escape dynamic.
In Retribution Anderson’s passion for video games has never been more evident as enemies face off against Alice and the resistance fighters as though this was happening via a Playstation or Xbox, with wave after wave attacking, followed by exposition, then followed by a ‘boss’ level. The irony being that as Retribution plays out like a video game on the big screen, it was initially inspired by a video game franchise designed to play like a horror movie.
To pick holes in this film would be akin to picking holes in Swiss cheese, suffice to say the internal logic of the movie is a little more than flawed. Characters behave in idiotic ways (at one point, trained soldiers need to be told to return fire) questions are asked, but never answered (such as the whereabouts of a conspicuously absent Chris and Claire Redfield) the reason for Alice being held captive is never explained, nor the survival of a main character that Alice dispatched in a previous movie.
The 3D whilst not particularly bad, lacks a little imagination. Compared to the in use of 3D in the recently released Dredd, it really suffers. Whereas Dredd used 3D in a subtle and at times beautiful manner, in this film the use of 3D screams of studio bosses with dollar signs in front of their eyes.
I was impressed that Anderson reigned in his fetish for onscreen maps and schematics until just past the thirty minute mark, however from this point onwards they appeared so frequently it began to feel like the architectural computer sections of Grand Designs.
The cinematography did at times impress and there were several spectacular shots within this film, most notably an underwater shot involving a villain’s demise and an earlier reveal of a seemingly infinite number of clones spinning on what appears to be a giant dry-cleaner’s carousel. As you would expect from this franchise there are a few of the classic Resident Evil beasties. Of these the Licker impressed most with some good use of CGI and the only scares of the movie.
The use of clones in Retribution allowed Anderson to bring back some of the characters and actors from previous instalments with Anderson’s friend and lucky charm Colin Salmon returning, unfortunately he is given little to do but bark orders, denied his usual spectacular death scene. Oded Fehr and Michelle Rodriguez fair a little better, with the latter getting the best of the screen time on offer.
Unfortunately the inclusion of previously dead characters only serves to remind the viewer of the better films that have come before. In fact this movie in some ways feels like a greatest hits record, so many of the sequences or villains/monsters have been used before and to greater effect.
The testing facility plot device that uses holo-deck style environments gives the film the opportunity to bring something new to the franchise. On the occasions that Retribution tries a different approach to its predecessors, these are merely facsimiles of superior movies.
This can be seen in a suburban outbreak scene which has none of the drama or terror of Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake. The use of the Moscow setting and the introduction of Zombie soldiers has been done far better before, both in terms of look and execution in films such as Dead Snow or Outpost. Even the inclusion of a child-in-peril screams of an Aliens/Ripley/Newt pastiche.
Much has been made of the previous films’ lack of faithfulness to the source material and in particular the steady relegation of the zombie from what is still classified as a zombie movie. However in this film the biggest problem is in the elements that are identical to the game. Anderson’s decision to have the film characters dress exactly like their video game counterparts might please fan boys, but really is at the expense of logic. How many resistance agents go in to battle in a cocktail dress, or in the case of Barry Burton (a criminally wasted Kevin Durand) would a soldier enter a supposedly zombie infested complex wearing a sleeveless top and no body armour?
The biggest compliment I can pay Resident Evil: Retribution is that it is mercifully short, that being said, it does represent ninety minutes of my life I will never be able to get back and I would not recommend wasting any time on it unless you are a RE completist. With no character development, plot or dialogue worth remembering it was truly bemusing that there was a set up for potentially a sixth film in the franchise.
Now that really is something to be afraid of.
My Rating 4.1 out of 10 Kevin Williams
