Resident Evil: Retribution

The wastelands of Russia is where they all go, deep down underneath it's best to move with the flow, in simulated worlds where everything's pretend, excepting of course the finality of end. It's amazing the visions computers can screen, especially controlled by the psychotic Red Queen, with cascades of clones conveyed at her will, banks of fresh meat ready to rupture and spill. How long can this perpetual carnage continue, the raking of flesh from the bone and the sinew, mutations of mutations morph change with variations, to create eternal versions of the worst abominations.

I've been a long time fan of the Resident Evil series even when people criticized them left and right. I thought they were really entertaining, stylish and inventive. Until now. There is no way I can stick up for this movie or any reason I'd even want to. I can't really give you a synopsis cause I'm not even sure what I just watched. All I can say is that it was huge disappointment in every facet possible. Despite the silliness of the previous films they always grounded themselves in some type of realism within the reigns of its premise. This entry doesn't even feel like it's a part of the same franchise. Gone is the fun and it's been replaced with ritzy production values and no discernible storyline. It's a movie based on a video game in which they are actually part of a video game and nothing is really happening. Despite a somewhat promising start with a cool reverse battle sequence, a best of franchise film reel and an inventive and even a little scary trip into suburbia we than move on to the supposed purpose of the film which just doesn't make sense at all. I mean the choices are just astoundingly bad why make the little girl deaf and the film filled with sign language, why set it in this underground facility, why is all of this happening, with this type of technology how does the remaining human population even have a chance, how is Wesker alive and why is he good now? he's not human??? None of these questions will be answered and lets not even discuss the frustratingly awkward scenes like one in which one of the good guys has a double unnecessary death, an uninspired nod towards the Alien franchise and repetitive scenarios that get less effective the more you see them (really the squid face things). Also, the acting has never been good in the Resident Evil series but Milla Jovovich had evoked a cool sense of fierce heroine, this time around she just seems plain bored as do the other actors. Filled with insipid dialogue, questionable plotting,overlong pacing, a weird bad movie from the 90's score, mediocre fight choreography (except for the scene with the chain) and a crapload of wasted potential this movie just feels like a bad dream. Sometimes, when I'm really looking forward to a movie I'll dream about it the night before and it will be horrible well this is what this feels like. Because in no possible way, what I just watched is a resident evil movie. Despite all of my complaining the movie does have some decent scenes the suburbia one I brought up before was kinda neat, another featuring Ada and Alice against 2 ax men and the chain fight in Tokyo. Besides that it's all just a big plodding waste of existential cinematic trash. A brainless, soulless unintentionally funny horror/action/sci fi hybrid that despite a larger budget,returning cast members and more impressive production values feels like an overlong filler episode that leaves me with a big question mark. Why has this happened to my beloved franchise???

Not sure if this movie is only for videogamers, but I can't see anyone else caring to sit through it. The movie made it quite clear, early on, that there would be no complicated plot lines or character development. And the dialogue was equally simplistic. The lines sounded something like this - go to the 3rd mountain and collect 20 coins and 3 golden power boosters. One quickly sensed this was not a movie at all, rather a simple video game cut scene. Also problematical were the incredibly goofy scenes with thousands of bullets aimed point blank at the heroes and all of them missing. It just takes all of the fun out of a movie when there is absolutely no sense of danger to the heroes.

On the plus side, the action sequences were very well shot and the cgi was first class. That said, it just wasn't enough to make this reviewer glad to be sitting in the audience

Following the last movie, Alice is captured and imprisoned by The Red Queen in an Umbrella Corporation's underground facility in Kamchatka. Now Wesker wants Alice to put on a last stand for humanity alongside him. With Ada Wong on the inside and a team from the outside, they try to escape from The Red Queen.

There isn't much going on storywise. They put in virtual environments in the facility so that they could play out some of the action in NY and Moscow. There are also clones in this facility so that Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, and Oded Fehr can return to the franchise. At its core, it's all about the action. The story isn't that important. It's not really a movie. It's more a video game. Enjoy!

PREMISE: Alice. Kills stuff. PLOT: Alice. Kills stuff.

Viewers hoping for a coherent narrative are advised to try Capcom's Resident Evil cartoons; viewers completely new to the series really have no choice but to let the images simply break over them like tsunamis. Despite 2 or 3 pages of exposition, series writer/director Paul W. S. Anderson clearly assumes that anyone rejoining him at this point is so familiar with both the movies and the various R.E./BIOHAZARD VGs that new characters (Ada Wong; Leon Kennedy) can be ported over from the games, and old characters (Rain; Carlos) resurrected without explanation (Jill Valentine, Albert Wesker and Luther West are back; Claire and Chris Redfield make cameos). Happily, I AM that geekish, so enjoyed the merry-go-round.

The CGI FX, which are virtually non-stop, are more varied, energetic, and original than in previous sequels. No more mutant dead dogs, thank goodness, although Anderson remains overly-fond of his tentacles- bursting-out-of-the-mouth shots.

The movie is less a script than a series of levels, as Alice, Project Alice, Leon, Ada and their ad hoc teams are dragged through artificial environments adapted from previous installments, from games (notably the new Manhattan and Moscow sets), from any spin-off that isn't bolted to the ground, even from absolutely unconnected franchises (e.g. DAWN OF THE DEAD). Each setting—all controlled by The Red Queen--has its own horde of character clones infected with different strains of the T-Virus and/or Plaga Parasite and its own boss monster adapted from one or another of the games.

If...and only if...that paragraph made the least bit of sense, then this movie's recommended.