Review Resident Evil: Retribution

Good day all it’s time for another movie review. This week, I saw the latest entry in the Resident Evil franchise. As usual, there may be spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it yet, leave now. Still here? Ok, you asked for it.

As usual, I went to my favorite theater, Chunky’s Cinema Pub. I had a good meal of steak tips fries and a salad, washed down with some Sam Adams Oktobrefest. The theater wasn’t full, and the reasons why will become apparent. I didn’t go to see the 3D version since I hate wearing the glasses not to mention the extra $3 for the tickets.

Now to the movie itself. I was disappointed. The film was colorful, lots of action and shooting, Milla Jovovich looks absolutely smashing. The plot? Missing in action I’m afraid. It looks a lot like the makers of the movie went for pretty pictures instead of storytelling, not that a solid plot was ever that important in the Resident Evil series.

The story opens right were the last movie left off, with dozens of Osprey class aircraft moving in on the ship Alice and the others are on. Lots of shooting and Alice gets blown over the side. We never find out what happened to Claire and Chris Redfield or the recently released K-mart.

We next see Alice in a suburban house. She has long hair, is married to Todd and has a deaf daughter named Becky. Things seem good for little family, then the zombies attack. Lots of running panic and death occurs. The last thing Alice sees is her now zombiefied husband Todd coming at her.

Alice then wakes up in some sort of cell wearing the same garb she was wearing at the end of the first Resident Evil film and the beginning of the second film. Basically two sheets of paper barely covering her and held together with a couple of pieces of string. Surprisingly, a lot less is shown of Milla than in the first two movies.

And now the plot goes out to lunch.

We have Luther from the last movie racing across an ice sheet near an old Russian navel base with a team of men. They are on their way to the facility that Alice is being held in. While that’s going on, Alice is being interrogated by Sienna Guillory who has a mind control device on her. Luther’s team arrives and triggers a power blackout that allows Alice to escape.

As Luther’s team gets into the Umbrella corporation facility, which is a large undersea Soviet era submarine base, Alice runs into the usual gamut of zombies and other bio-weapons created by Umbrella Corporation. More shooting and crashing about and Alice ends up meeting Ada Wong. Ada tells Alice she is working for Albert Wesker, who is no longer associated with Umbrella, and that in fact the Red Queen Artificial Intelligence Alice encountered in the first film now controls Umbrella Corporation. The Red Queen wants to destroy all life on the planet. Wesker needs Alice and has sent in the team that Luther is a part of to rescue her.

It’s here that Alice finds out that the complex she is in is designed to be a large simulation system for bio-weapons. Alice and Ada need to get through several simulated cities to reach the rescue team. We now return to the running, shooting and assorted zombies. At one point Alice and Ada reach the section that simulates an American suburb. Alice finds the house that was the point of the initial simulation and finds herself dead on the floor. Ada tells her that Umbrella uses clones with basic memories. Alice, giving the appearance of remembering something, goes upstairs and starts searching a bedroom. She runs into a zombie which she handles, and out pops Becky. Becky thinks this version of Alice is her mom, but wonders what happened to her hair and clothes.

Now, Sienna shows up with members from the first Resident Evil team, including Rain (Michelle Rodriguez). A gunfight happens, (Big surprise), and Ada Wong is captured. Alice and Becky escape and go into the Moscow simulation. Moving into the subway they run into another clone of Rain. This one is dead opposite of the evil Rain Alice is running from. This one, to put it bluntly, is your typical liberal anti-gun moonbat.

Alice give liberal Rain a gun and basic instructions and heads off to find the team Luther is on. More zombies, bio-weapons and shooting with some crazy car chases thrown in for good measure. As you might expect, the members of Luther’s team are killed off one by one. Alice finally encounters them and they go back to the subway and meet Liberal Rain and Becky. They all then head to the main docks so they can escape.

Once there they run into another bio-weapon and Liberal Rain is killed with Becky taken away by the creature. Alice goes after it with Luther about to accompany her. He gets shot as Sienna and her team of clones shows up. Alice proceeds up the elevator shaft after the creature and Becky. Down below, More shooting. While all this is going on, timers are counting down that will trigger explosives Luther and the others placed.

Alice reaches the chamber where the creature has taken Becky, rescues her and make their escape. During their escape, they enter the chamber where all the clones are created and stored. Becky sees copies of herself and Alice. She turns to Alice and says “You aren’t my mom.” Alice says that she is her mother from now on. In comes the creature, more fighting and Alice kills it and destroys the cloning facility.

The surviving members of the team reach the surface as the explosives go off, flooding the facility. They start driving off in the Sno-Cat and are starting to relax when the ice breaks up under them and the cat is flipped on it’s side. A submarine surfaces and out comes Sienna and Evil Rain with Ada in tow wearing handcuffs.

Evil Rain injects herself with the “La Plagas parasite,” knocks out Ada and attacks Luther and Leon. During the fight, Luther is killed. (I’m sure he will be back as a clone in the next film) Meanwhile, Alice is fighting Sienna and getting her ass kicked. She finally manages to rip off the mind control device, freeing Sienna from the Red Queen’s control.

Alice joins Leon fighting Evil Rain and again is getting her ass kicked. She looks down through the ice and see’s a zombie trying to break through. She takes her gun, shoots the ice and lets Evil Rain fall through where the zombies deal with her.

At this point helicopters arrive and rescue the survivors. The fly to Wesker’s base, which turns out to be the White House with a few battalions of U.S. Military forces defending the location. Alice is escorted to meet with Wesker who injects her with the T-virus, reinfecting her and restoring her powers. Alice is furious and says she will kill Wesker.

He says that may well happen, but first she is needed to save the few remaining humans from extinction. Wesker then leads them up top of The White House, explaining that this is the last stand of the human race. The scene zooms out to reveal the landscape around them, showing destroyed Umbrella helicopters, volcanic craters and the remaining U.S troops and Wesker’s Umbrella army fighting against enormous hordes of zombies and mutant creatures.

As I said, I was disappointed in the movie. I think the franchise has just about reached it’s conclusion, even with the set up for a 6th installment in the future. While Milla looks great, she is 36 now and a mother. It does show. It’s pretty obvious that this installment was done with an eye to making money and not actually furthering the story. (Nothing wrong with making money of course. I encourage it)

The 3D effects were obvious placements and wasted in the 2D version I saw.

So, the final verdict. Would I recommend this movie? I would say “Sort of.” I wouldn’t spend full price on it and if I had known how disappointing it was, I would have gone to the cheaper matinee or even waited for it to come out on HBO or Showtime. It could have been better, but it wasn’t.

My next movie will be Judge Dredd.

Until next time…

~The Angry Webmaster~

(1 votes, average: 1.00 out of 5)

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