Resident Evil: Retribution
(’12 review)

3 outta 5

Resident Evil: Retribution is simultaneously extremely lazy and ambitious which is probably the most you can hope for in the number five instalment of a series that has had the same basic creative team driving it for over a decade.  It’s sort of a “greatest hits” by rearranging and referencing several past moments.  You can see bits cribbed from before, small pieces from the videogames that inspired it, and things flat-out ripped off from other movies.  But, darn it, for a big giant mess it’s a spectacularly pretty big giant mess.  If enjoying a movie that features an extended sequence of the protagonist whipping zombies in the face with a chain is wrong then I don’t want to be right. 

The movie kicks off in bizarrely beautiful backwards slow-motion 3D of Alice (Mila Jovovich) falling into water and goes from there.  This is a microcosm of writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson’s movies; for all the long stretches of meh you can find burst of inspiration and artistic filmmaking.  One sequence involves Alice waking up in a long and empty prison cell as she’s being battered by interrogation questions and weird sonic noises.  Alice is decked out in the paper-thin gown we’ve multiple times throughout the series, which is an easy choice, but the abstract nature of the interrogation sequence makes it compelling. 

Anyway after the opening credits there is a long expository dump about the convoluted continuity of Resident Evil which is a sign that this series has been around a bit too long. This leads into a seemingly disconnected short-film of Alice in a suburban environment attacked by zombies.  Is the evil Umbrella Corporation, the originators of the undead outbreak that covers the Earth, trying to hack Alice’s brain?  Is there a time-travel twist?  Is it a dream sequence?  Considering how wacky the series has gotten none of it is out of the realm of possibility.  The true answer is actually rather ingenious or goofy, depending on your point of view. 

But the main plot is this: Alice is trapped in yet another expansive underground subterranean lair built by Umbrella and has to fight her way through various monsters to get out while running into copies of her associates from the previous movies. She is assisted by Ada Wong (Bingbing Li), who is decked out in a stylish gown which would seem exceptionally impractical for an infiltration mission but she wore the same damn thing during an infiltration mission in the game “Resident Evil 4”.  Alice and Ava have to meet up with their rescue team led by Leon (Johnathan Urb), Barry (Kevin Durrand), some guy from the last movie and a Russian dude holding an iPad.  They’re sent on a rescue mission by Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) who wanted to kill Alice last time but now he wants to save her.  Roberts is in the movie for two scenes but in one he’s framed on a video screen exactly like how Wesker is in “Resident Evil 4” so that’s another shout-out to the games here.  Also for some reason Alice decides to save a kid who is basically just a prop and it leads into a sequence that is almost exactly beat-for-beat like when Ripley went to save Newt in Aliens. 

You can’t say much about the acting in this movie because it’s only about looking badass in every other shot.  Still, Jovovich interjects a small amount of quirkiness, same goes for Durrand.  Roberts has the excellent pronunciation that is a trademark of Wesker in any medium.  There is also returning veteran Michelle Rodriquez doing the tough chick thing she usually does but there’s also another version of her which is a bit more wimpy.  She has her moments like when she injects herself with Las Plagas parasite for a climatic action sequence that looks great but doesn’t make sense unless you’ve actually played “Resident Evil 4” or “5”.   As mind-controlled minion Jill Valentine Sienna Gillroy has a fantastic throw-down with Alice at the end.  That fight includes some “X-Ray” shots of bones breaking which is completely ripped off from the most recent “Mortal Kombat” game.  So now W.S. Anderson is stealing from different games as well.

This movie delivers on it’s modest of goals of bug-crazy action throughout.  It feels the most like a video game as Alice has to traverse through literally different levels in the evil lair to escape.  That’s either self-aware or incredibly lethargic. But, hell, the movie throws monsters and zombies and even monster Russian solider zombies at ya so you get bang for you buck.  Making the chaos even better is the surprisingly propulsive score by musical duo tomandandy.

One has to admire how Retribution barely pauses between action sequences and rarely worries about silly little things like logic and internal character motivational consistency.  Resident Evil: Retribution is not great filmmaking, nor is it even particularly good blockbuster movie-making, but little bits are worth it.  At least they’re trying.  Kinda.