Resident Evil: Retribution

Following a surprise attack, Alice, former agent of the Umbrella Corporation, finds herself captured in a facility where illusion is the greatest weapon and history is being predicted.  Tasked with an impossible mission, Alice teams up with a host of new allies but finds herself face to face with familiar friends, resurrected by Umbrella with the sole purpose of ending her existence.  As the war against Umbrella reaches a fever pitch, Alice must find new resolve to finish the fight that began so long ago.

I cant believe it.  They’ve actually gotten worse since Resident Evil: Extinction.  That third film was, and probably is, the last film to have any high marks for this terrible movie franchise.  As if it wasn’t possible at all, Resident Evil: Retribution turns out to be even worse than Resident Evil: Afterlife.  Not only is it more removed from the Resident Evil name, it feels insulting to slap it on this wreck…but it is beyond dull and that’s talking about a movie chalk full of cute girls shooting up Zombies and other bioweapons.

First off, forget everything you knew about Resident Evil: Afterlife because that’s what Retribution does in the first two minutes.  After a rewound and normal speed opening sequence (yes you see it twice, lame), the film doesn’t even bother to address the absence of Chris and Claire Redfield.  Instead, we get a the largest assortment of RE characters in any of these films thus far.  Leon S. Kennedy, Barry Burton and Ada Wong all join the cast and like everyone else in this crummy adaptation, theyre all handled poorly.  Kevin Durand and Li Bingbing are perfectly cast in their roles.  But Durand isn’t given nearly enough time to shine as Barry (though he does get an entertaining quip or two) and Bingbing seems to be directed to not act like the confident and sexy assassin seductress that Ada Wong has always been.  I don’t blame her at all, she is spot on in Ada’s iconic red dress from Resident Evil 4, she’s just being given poor direction by returning director Paul W.S. Anderson…who seems to want to make sure Alice has all the spotlight and best moments and no one upstages her (could go into greater detail why that might be but I wont.).  And Leon…is some European guy whose all accent and all wrong for the role.  Yep, that’s right, two of the biggest heroes in the Resident Evil franchise have been botched in two movies, thanks Anderson.

The big draw of Retribution is the return of several familiar faces and nods to past events of the franchise.  So “Retribution” feels like the wrong title (it’s pretty random actually).  Instead, this movie should have been titled “Resident Evil: Here’s What We Think Everyone Thinks Are Our Greatest Hits.”  Michelle Rodriguez, Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr, Colin Salmon and Shawn Roberts all reprise their roles as Rain Ocampo, Jill Valentine, Carlos Oliveria, James “One” Shade and Albert Wesker.  Rain, Carlos and Shade are all brought back as evil clones led by a mind controlled Jill, who’s sporting her catsuit and ruby chest control unit from Resident Evil 5.  Where to begin here?  First, somehow, Guillory is even worse here than she was in Resident Evil: Apocalypse, she’s just bad here.  It doesn’t help that Anderson decided to give her the Jill arc that everybody who knows the video games unanimously despises.  Carlos and Shade get nothing to do besides look evil and shoot at Alice.  Only Michelle Rodriguez gets anything of value out of this.  She plays two clone versions of Rain: a darker, deadlier version of her old self and a peace loving civilian in one of the holographic settings (we’ll get to that).  Sure Carlos get the same treatment but Rodriguez gets to show more range and plays well against her normal bad ass type as Peace Rain.  However, Michelle Rodriguez is still a certified bad ass and gets some of the best action in the movie as she lays the smackdown on characters I could care less about so seeing her pummel them is actually a joy.  If nothing else, it makes me wish that Rain had been in more movies as she’s clearly a better fit for any of them than Alice is.

Oh right, the story.  We’ve gone from desert wastelands to what’s left of LA to an underwater Umbrella facility that’s made to create clones and send them to die in scenarios that test biohazards in various locations.  That’s it, Umbrella has gone full Spectre and it’s as ridiculous as it sounds.  Retribution feels the most video game like of the RE films so far and that’s not a good thing at all.    Again, it’s mostly just an excuse to revisit old sequences and enemies like the opening of Afterlife or Alice and Ada facing two Executioners from that same movie.  The clones aspect might feel dumb but there is one bit I have to give good marks on.  One subplot is Alice finding her clones “daughter” in one of the simulations.  The daughter, Becky, is played by Aryana Engineer, who is partially deaf in real life and her character is modeled in the same way.  You can tell that care was given to this role and everytime she shares a scene with Alice or Carlos, its obvious that Milla Jovovich and Oded Fehr spent time studying sign language better communicate with Engineer.  Retribution lacks a lot of effort but im glad some was given here at least.

Now that I think about it, the saddest thing about Resident Evil: Retribution is that Anderson is so all in on the Alice angle that you could take out all of the side characters…and nothing is lost from the overall film.  I honestly cant think of anything Jill, Ada, Leon, Barry, Carlos or Shade add to the story other than, “Hey remember these guys from the games and movies?”  Rain only gets a slighter pass for her Michelle Rodriguez cred but her being brought back as a bad guy would’ve had a bigger impact had she been around more previously.  At this point though, Retribution is just another low point for a franchise already well into the dirt.  The action is boring, the horror isn’t scary, the story is nonsensical, the cliffhanger is dumb and there’s nothing even remotely enjoyable about these films claiming to be related to Resident Evil, one of the greatest video game franchises of all time.  And the worst, THE WORST part of it is…The Final Chapter wont fix anything.  I can say Retribution is rock bottom…but I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.

2/10