Resident Evil: Retribution – Film Review
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory and Michelle Rodriguez
Distributor: Sony Pictures
W.S. Anderson has a tendency to make films that are best described as ‘chewing gum for the mind’. Movies that are all about spectacle, a lot of flash and as little narrative as possible. While most of his creative output is generally perceived as laughable from a critical point of view, he continues to make the industry a fortune with every shovelful of 3D garbage he spews out. And, of course, the Resident Evil movie franchise is his flagship.
Fans and critics alike have learned to stop expecting anything resembling a plot in these Jovovich led zombie-fests. The fifth installment plays out very similar to the films that preceded it, with Alice having just saved the world, only to discover she has to do it all again in a very similar fashion as last time (i.e. kicking ass, but only in slow-motion). This time around, she finds herself waking up in a massive underground testing site for biological weapons. Owned by the Umbrella Corporation, these testing grounds replicate a number of the world’s largest cities, including New York and Moscow. This makes the films tag-line, “Evil goes global”, feel like a bit of a cheat, but that’s the least of your worries here.
To give the film credit, while it does suffers from many of the same problems that plagued the previous films, the action sequences are a definite improvement. Resident Evil: Afterlife, (the fourth film) was utterly mind-numbing with it’s tedious and repetitive shoot-outs and extended periods of uncomfortable dialogue. Retribution, thankfully, packs far more of a punch and has a little bit more variety to keep things semi-interesting. We see the return of the giant Axe Men (plural, this time) and the infamous Lickers, a fan favorite. And while the dialogue is still horrendous as ever, there are a few so-bad-they’re-good lines to make the proceedings a little bit more bearable.
The roster of characters in this film is bigger than it has ever been. It really shouldn’t come as any surprise then that they are about as one-dimensional as they come, and a blatant advertisement for missed opportunities. We finally see the arrival Leon S. Kennedy, the hero from the second and fourth games and the now infamous Barry Burton, who provided some of the most hilariously cheesy dialogue from the original Resident Evil game. It will sadden many fans to discover that, despite the pivotal roles they played in the games, they act as little more than cannon fodder/zombie chow here. Supplying us with the occasional clichèd one-liner and shooting in impressively impractical ways, they are almost offensively forgettable.
As well as these newcomers, Anderson also supplies us with a wide range of characters from previous films, three of which have already died spectacular deaths. This explained away with clones. Why even bother to argue?
The performances of the cast seesaw between wooden and cheesy. Alice rattles off horribly generic action-movie dialogue with dead seriousness (“Let’s get the hell out of here!”), which makes her performance a little difficult to gauge. She is given the opportunity to show a more sensitive side when she takes rosy cheeked Becky under her wing. However, this relationship is such an obvious replica of Ripley and Newt’s from Aliens (right down to the sticky cocoon prison), that it is difficult to take in any way seriously.
Sienna Guilory, who plays Jill Valentine (and who looks remarkably like Nina Williams from Tekken), is one of the biggest offenders in the film. She genuinely sounds as though she learned her lines the night before. Albert Wesker executes his role in a similar fashion, sounding for all the world like a parody of his character. The only actor to come out of the film relatively unscathed is Michelle Rodriguez. Aside from having some of the best action sequences, she also seems like she’s the only real professional in the bunch.
Scathing as this review might seem, Retribution is actually a step up from the previous films, although this feels like a complete and utter fluke. The action is quite flashy and fairly consistent, meaning it doesn’t give you much time to register how flat the story or characters are. Yet these problems remain, and, from the looks of things, they aren’t going to go away any time soon. Nothing you haven’t seen already, Resident Evil: Retribution is, at best, a guilty pleasure.
Score: 2/5
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