Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Last night my boyfriend and I made it over to the theatres before it got pulled off on Friday to see Resident Evil: Retribution.  This is what happens when you are in a suburban area and the theatres focus on French version of Hollywood movies, but its alright as it meant that we pushed ourselves to see it faster.  Just a quick recap for you, I’m a newbie at Resident Evil.  I watched all the Resident Evils this summer.

Just to give you an idea of my thoughts on the first few:  The first one, Resident Evil, was the only one that should be categorized as a horror movie as it was the closest to it.  The tone was slightly eerie and the storyline was decent.  The second and third called Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Resident Evil: Extinction was really borderline.  I’m not really sure I’d call it “so bad its good”, at times I found myself rolling my eyes but it had its moments that I just laughed at the movie, but I mean it wasn’t really laughable and wasn’t very scary in general.  The fourth one, Resident Evil: Afterlife was a different story.  That was brainless entertainment 101 and it was so fun to watch.  I mean it was crappy acting, horrible (if any) storyline but altogether I had a fun time laughing and just enjoying the action.  It was a nice flick to just give your brain a little break.

Okay, so  now lets get down to business.  We get Resident Evil: Retribution which is the fifth one in this series.  When I saw the preview for this, I was seriously wanting to see it because it just looked so awesomely fun and c’mon, why pass up the chance for 3D fun when its made exactly for it? This movie was made for 3D, for all who didn’t know.  There is just that one choice: 3D.  Its all to say, I expected some great fun times at the theatres.

The question now is: Did I actually get what I wanted? Hell yes! Let me tell you why.  For starters, this movie you probably don’t really need to see the first few and thats usually the case for Resident Evil.  They always give you a recap of the stories beforehand and sometimes its the part relevant for this movie or linked in some way or another. This helps give the new audience a way to slightly understand what lead to the situation now. I had seen these during the summer so it was alright, I didn’t really need the recap but it helped me build the intensity the other movies had before, relive some of the action from before.

In a movie like this, you are talking about action matched a bunch of horrible acting and a very lengthened storyline that expands further (if you’ve followed the last few, it just builds from the first one sometimes if not mostly into very crazy ideas).  As much as these features usually would make a movie very unenjoyable, I would say that it has been a charm for Resident Evil series.  In this one, its the essence of the horrible acting and how they pull out those bad looks that made me laugh so much.

What I did thoroughly liked was the fact that they brought back a lot of the characters from previous movies.  I think to be able to bring back the same cast helps the audience that has followed these series feel more attached to the characters (no matter the acting skills).  So just a recap, Milla Jovovich stays as the main female role by the name of Alice who is the one who has been able to bond with the T-Virus that has been whats infected the world.   Her “enemy” from Umbrella Corporation, Albert Wesker (played by  Shawn Roberts) is back, bringing with him the video game characters of Ada Wong (played by Bingbing Li) and Leon (Johann Urb) also Barry (Kevin Durand).  I may not know all the actors very well but Bingbing Li is one I’ve seen her grow as an actress in Chinese movies and she’s alright.  Its nice to see her in a Hollywood flick. Aside from that, we get pulled into how come all the previous ones are back with Rain (Michelle Rodriguez) and Luther West (Boris Kodjoe).  Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) comes back as an enemy who is used by the Umbrella Corporation.  You know who they brought back to control Umbrella Corporation, The Red Queen.  I always thought that part was the essence of the horror in the first one.  So lots of action going on just from all that.   You bring in more people, more weapons, more fighting and more action.

As mentioned before, 3D was the main feature of this movie.  In the beginning and various parts, it was the 3D that really brought me back to jump a bit (but thats because I’m just easily startled) because when these zombies are coming at you suddenly or bursting through doors in the beginning, it can do that.  Other times, it just magnified all the action going on.  The computer graphics is bad though. Let me say, it brings out all the cheesiness and matches up when that pure entertainment, action and cheesy one-liners and glares between the characters.  Man, thinking about it just makes me laugh.

Before I end this and continue rambling on about how its “so bad its good”, which it is.  As someone who has seen all the previous ones, I can’t stop but think that Paul W.S. Anderson definitely has this down real good. The Resident Evils he did (1, 4 and now 5) was awesome in that way and same goes for Death Race and I just saw that he even did Event Horizon. All movies that I liked so I guess I’m into his kind of entertainment.  I’m already saying that if they pulled out a Resident Evil 6, I’ll be there also (which I think there will be) and you bet that Paul W.S. Anderson will be involved one way or another.  Especially if we get that “this is humanities last stand. The beginning of the end.”

So all in all, PLEASE and I’m begging you, an advisory to those that hated the first few or you just don’t like this brainless entertainment, blood splattering action, just stay far away.  If you do love that or simply, “so bad its good” movie, this one I would recommend.  I’m still debating whether the one before was better but for now, I’m happy with this one.  I’m fairly confident we’ll have a 6th one especially since they just brought out the video game characters.  I’d like to end this off with Alice’s favorite line  to start off the movie(she says this in variation for all the movies in this series), “Once again we find ourselves fighting for our lives”.