There comes a point when watching video game movies that I just have to wonder what in the hell the people making these films are doing. It can't be that hard to make a film out of these things. Just play the damn game, write down what happens and you've got your script. Easiest thing ever, right? All the hard work is done for you. Why the makers of the "Resident Evil" films thought that the thing a horror game about crippling tension and nerve shattering atmosphere was missing was wire-fu and Milla Jovovich with super-powers is beyond me, but then again I'm not a professional. I'm just a guy who played the damn game. What do I know?
Then again, the plot to the "Resident Evil" games did get titanically stupid and impossible to follow really quick, and to be honest they kinda suck too. So I guess they've got me there. Whatever, I know how this works. Just start with the endless waves of zombies getting shot, Albert Wesker being a huge ham, me not having the slightest clue what's going on and Milla Jovovich being strategically almost naked. Let's get this over with. I've got places to be.
Okay. I'll bite. Why did they dress you in a sheet of parchment paper? What possible purpose does that serve? Keeping you warm? Or are you dressed up for Halloween as a sexy piece of loose-leaf?
We begin "Resident Evil: Retribution" with...*sigh*...okay wait. I got something to say before we go any further. You ready for this? It's the first review of 2013, and I'm already about to once again drop some funky fresh science.
It's time for "LESSONS WITH PROFESSOR PAT"
Pictured above - A man with a mustache.
LESSON #75 - "Try harder at movie titles!"
There are several ways to go about naming sequels to films. The easiest, most logical method is obviously numbering them in chronological order. This is rare. If you do this, you are awesome. Everyone knows the order of the films without any question, and they can easily discuss them without having to add qualifiers to differentiate between films. Most people end up doing this anyway, even if the movies aren't numbered (eg - People refer to "Rocky Balboa" as "Rocky 6" because it makes sense, damn it.)
If, on the other hand, you use one of the inexcusably abused and worn out verb-ish sounding nouns to throw on the end of your film's title that sound epic but ultimately mean nothing such as Revolution, Revelations, Extinction, Retribution, Salvation, Apocalypse, The Beginning, or The Revenge, you suck and need to try harder. Extraordinarily rarely do these words have anything to do with the movie they are attached to, and all it does is to make me assume right out of the gate that it will suck. If it's called "Revolution" have a damn revolution in it. If it's called "Extinction" or "Apocalypse" everything had better die at the end. "The Beginning" had better not EVER have another movie set before it. Somebody better get saved in "Salvation." And "Revelations" had damn well better reveal a LOT of stuff.
If not, you're just throwing on a cliched, dumb word at the end like a lazy bastard that doesn't care. And if you can't be bothered to even think up a decent title, what hope does the rest of the film have?
/science drop
Back to the movie. "Retribution" finds us moving backwards as the entire opening scene, where Umbrella attacks the cargo vessel Alice (Milla Jovovich) is on, is played in slow-motion reverse during the opening credits. While it's interesting seeing explosions and people being shot in that way, it gets old pretty quick and is confusing. This is especially so when get to "the end" of the scene, when it then plays the entire scene again forward at normal speed. Why they do this I have no idea. I'm sure it was just a gimmick to use for the 3D in the theaters. Glad I'm watching it on my TV in 2D. Really makes it pop.
Wow. It's like I'm right there.
After that thoroughly confusing debacle we find Alice in suburbia reenacting the opening of the remake of "Dawn of The Dead." While it's nice to see "Resident Evil" finally look like a zombie film after five freaking movies, it's clear that everything is not what it seems and it won't last, as Alice has a husband and daughter, and Rain (Michelle Rodriguez) is now alive after being dead since the first one.
Sure enough, Alice "dies" and we find out it's all a simulation or that was a clone or both or neither or something and there's a deaf kid and I have no idea what's going on here in this damn movie. Alice wakes up (strategically naked, naturally) in a white room where this disembodied voice keeps asking her questions and then hurting her with sound when she doesn't answer, but after a while they just let her go and give her leather bondage clothes which just happen to be there in a hidden compartment in the white room for some reason. I guess it's for the same reason the scientists in "Underworld Awakening" kept Kate Beckinsale's clothes right next to her tube even though they never intended to release her. Ever. Whatever. Alice then shoots zombies.
Lots of zombies.
It's all another simulation, of course. Kind of. Not really. Alice is actually in an underwater Umbrella facility in the Arctic which was made to showcase...something? Wesker's hologram explains at one point that it was made to play the world's superpowers off against each other, as there are several "stages" including Moscow and Suburbia USA and Tokyo, which are meant to show how effective a zombie outbreak would be in totally wrecking the place in the hopes that country would then buy the virus from them. Personally I think that seems like a colossal waste of time and money to spend on a huge facility which exists only to make probably about as much money as it cost to make the damn thing in the first place. Also, correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Umbrella just release the virus anyway?
And another thing. Why does an EEEEEEEVAL corporation like Umbrella, which is seemingly bent on destroying the world at all interested in money? They've killed nearly everyone on Earth. Who's there to control with that money and power? It's like stockpiling devices that will place pandas under your command and calling yourself Supreme Master of The Panda Empire. There's less than 2,000 of them left on the planet. Who cares?
Out of nowhere we get characters from the games appearing to infiltrate the base and I think rescue Alice. I'm not sure, actually. My memory for these movies is so bad, and I'm so lost as to the plot that I can't even remember if characters like Barry and Leon and Ada were even in the other films. And frankly I don't care. Whatever. Zombies carry guns now, there's a really big monster chasing them, Barry has an annoying face and Leon looks like one of the nihilists from "The Big Lebowski."
God, I wish I was watching "Logjammin'" right now.
It's really amazing that I have absolutely no idea what's going on when every single line of dialogue in this movie is exposition. It's not enough to show us anything, because we don't know what anything is here. No, everything needs to be explained to us as well, by characters who already know what they're looking at and would never need to say anything about it. And yet, despite all of that clunky dialogue, it's still a useless nightmare piecing anything together. It's a testament to how insanely convoluted this plot is, and how intimate your knowledge of these games with even more convoluted plots needs to be in order to understand anything. It reminded me of "The Last Airbender" in that way.
It's really best to not even better with making sense of anything. Just watch Milla and a bunch of other dudes with big guns shoot things. And does "Retribution" do that well? I guess so. It's nothing overly special but I can't say it didn't deliver in terms of making the heads of various things explode with bullets. So I guess in those terms you can't call it a total wash.
It also feels more like an actual video game than the other films did as the base feels like a variety of stages to get through, which while normally a point in a video game movie's favor is something of a detriment since it really drives home the point that there really isn't much holding this thing together besides advancing to "the next level." On the other hand, the end feels like a movie since it is purely Hollywood sequel-baiting. I love how movies like this can never have a self-contained ending.
Take all that for what it's worth. If you want a bunch of zombies getting shot up, sure. Watch "Resident Evil: Retribution." There's so much better movies for that, though. Right off the top of my head I could say "28 Weeks Later." However, that film didn't have a scene were Milla Jovovich has to show Michelle Rodriguez how to use a gun. That was pathetically funny. Michelle could be armed with a banana and come off as more of a hardass than Milla could.
Also, someone needs to tell Milla to work on her upper body strength so those guns don't shake when she lifts them. Come on.
And who the hell got any Retribution in this thing? It should have been called "Resident Evil: Escape." THAT would have made some sense.
THE BOTTOM LINE - There aren't too many positive things I have to say about "Resident Evil: Retribution" except to say that it's better than the second and third films. It's got some decent action, the sets are sometimes creative and neat, and there's some interesting visual designs going on with the settings. Other than that it's just a forgettable action movie with characters impossible to care about. Unless you're a big fan of the others, in which case it will probably be decently entertaining.
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