Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

From the opening credits, which show the immediate continuation of the previous film (but in reverse) onwards this feels like watching a videogame that some other unknown person (or perhaps a machine) is playing. Consequently it feels entirely contrived and there is no viewer involvement at any level, as it lacks both the structure and character development of a film story or the participatory element of a videogame one is playing oneself. It has got to the point where there are so many manufactured and or rebooted versions of the Alice figure and other participants that the entire series has lost any meaningful connection for the audience, despite the director's attempt to persuade us otherwise, as the multi-rebooted Alice decides to protect a child who was manufactured for the role of daughter to a manufactured suburban version of her. Basically, with all this cloning, anybody can be destroyed and brought back to serve a plotline that is becoming increasingly absurd. And we all know that clones aren't the real thing, but likely to be programmed by Umbrella, or the Red Queen, or Wesker, to serve some nefarious purpose that I have lost interest in knowing about.

*****I would actually give this a 6.25 (I gave Afterlife a 6.0) but IMDb won't let me!***** If you read my review for RE: Afterlife, you'll recall i said the movie continued off of the previous BUT only for the opening scene; same with this one! The opening scene of this one was a more fleshed-out version of the scene where Umbrella osprey-looking ships come to the "Arcadia" (only difference now, is it shows Alice and the gang ATTEMPT to fight them off.Then, Alice wakes up back in Raccoon city and dies trying to escape. You find out there are still Alice clones and places like Raccoon City (2'nd movie), Tokyo (4'th movie) and the Mansion (1'st movie) are all simulations. These simulations, and clones make it really hard to tell what's real and what isn't throughout the course of the movie. All in all it just comes across as really confusing. I'd say it was a better story than the previous movie, just executed poorly (hence the .25 better score).The end of the movie pretty much makes sense; solid enough to not make more if it bombs too bad, but open enough for a sequel if possible (which luckily there was...and it was AMAZING!) FINAL VERDICT: Like I said, the idea for the story was good and definitely better than RE: Afterlife, but it could've been a LOT better! ON THE BRIGHT SIDE: RESIDENT EVIL: THE FINAL CHAPTER!

Okay, I need someone to explain this to me... I've never played the games, read the books or watched the movie series. I decided to Marathon the entire movie series before watching The Final Chapter. This entire series had weak acting, cheesy action, cliché plots and flaws all around. This, I'm okay with and I am used to, and I've never took it as a serious franchise. This particular film however was a complete mess with inconsistencies. Had me saying 'What?' a dozen times before eventually just getting bored and rolling with it. Here's a few questions.. 1) How is Wesker alive? He blew up in 'Afterlife.' 2) How is Wesker human again? He was infected and all messed up. 3) How does the real Alice know sign language? And why? 4) What was the point of Sign language if everyone spoke in the film...? Including the fake girl and fake Alice mother? 5) Why was Alice in that facility if the Red Queen wanted her dead? 6) How did the Red Queen take control of Umbrella Corp? Since when?? 7) Why the random puzzled plot? It doesn't fit with the rest of the series?? 8) Why the familiar faces of the previously deceased? Are they clones? Why them?? 9) Was Jill a clone or was she real?The list can go on... this entire film had me question what was going on and who was who. This is probably the first time I ever felt like a series is genuinely being MILKED for money and business. People say it all the time, but this...? Yeah, now I'm a believer of that saying. The plots are inconsistent with one another and feel like they're running out of ideas.

It's just like come on every time with this film series, it never ever improves and yet again this movie is a step down from the last outing. We see again a movie full of action, easy to follow yes but fun, my word no, this is awful and that is not a word I have had to previously use on the franchise before. We see this time Alice (Milla Jovovich) fighting yet again, things pick up from where the last film left off, down to the second actually and from then on we see a mass adventure that goes nowhere and only provides glimpses of some decent action choreography that just doesn't mean anything among all the terrible lines spewed out. The man behind this all is Paul W. S. Anderson who is a producer on this film as well as the director and writer, and oh how he screws this one up, a movie I feel just didn't need to be made, or actually, just made well!Jovovich is typical in her role as Alice and for those who have come to get used to her acting it is same old, really though I do feel the writing makes her feel worse as an actor though. This movie is obsessed with throwing things from the past right back at you and none of them work, it feels like Anderson ran out of ideas within the first 5 minutes and just couldn't be bothered to make something even half decent. The plot is full but flimsy, in fact so full it is that by the end it is breaking off and becoming increasingly run of the mill with every passing second. We see some new faces and some we have seen before but truly none of them work, the villains seem like the shoddiest creation of this movie(the story isn't far off though).Anderson just doesn't seem to get it that he's not making good movies, sure you can make a few poor one's and they'll blow over eventually, but this is something else. The series started out under average and was poor too but never was it truly very bad but now it is has reached that and maybe it is the annoyance I have for this series or that it just gets worse every time but, I just had to describe this as awful. Let's talk about the technical points and the CGI is OK at times but even that is used stupidly, the sets are something from a weird dream that is also a nightmare and all the time I just felt what a waste of not only production designers, but also of imagination.I'm not going to rant for nine pages about how I hated this, I'm going to leave it for you to see if you haven't all ready, I know even some like these kind of OTT action movies but this one really does not stand out and can't even rank well among it's not even OK predecessors. I hope one day Anderson can look back on his career and realise this was not a good move, I even hope he can make one film where everyone likes it and says "Hey great job Paul" and not "Remember when you made those dumb zombie movies Paul, they were real bad". So yes, Resident Evil Retribution, a movie that is hard to recommend unless you're either really into zombies or really into Milla Jovovich, and even then there are many better zombie movies out there, and movies with Jovovich in that are also much better.