Some of the best television shows of the last decade have originated in the UK and are slowly starting to find their way to the US. One of these such shows is Luther starring Idris Elba. The story of Detective Chief Inspector John Luther is a dark and violent one. His obsession with his job has cost him his wife, but gained him a serial killer friend and a porn star protégé. Always under the watchful eye of his fellow law enforcement officials, and repeatedly suspected of being dirty, John Luther is one of the most interesting characters on television. He takes all those old stereotypes about cop shows and somehow makes them fresh again.
After reading all of those Resident Evil: Retribution 3D articles I have written over thelastfewmonths, you should have a good idea of my stance on the movie. I was never a big fan of the franchise, but I would watch it for the lack of a better alternative when it comes to entertainment.
Yep, that’s what I did. Initially, I was pondering about the possibility of watching the movie in 2D. I elected against that option and opted for the 3D version instead. I felt it’s only right for me to review this movie the way it was intended to be watched despite of my general disdain towards the overused gimmick. Rest assured, I did not review the movie in filtered lenses. (You can call it a pun if you’re stretching those lenses all the way to include the Real D ™ glasses.) Just because a movie is in 3D does not mean it’s poorly made. But in the end of the day, I did shell out an extra $4.50 for you gals and guys. (Yes, I did say “gal” first. I’m defying against the patriarchal system. Sue me.)
It wasn’t as long of a stretch as I thought as the glasses are sort of tinted. Call it an intended pun. It’s still a bad one but whatever.
Anyways, here’s a brief summary of Retribution. Basically, Alice (Milla Jovovich), our protagonist, is captured by Umbrella. Now, the once pharmaceutical-company-turned-evil-corporation-which-exists-solely-to-perform-eeeeviiiiilllllllllll-deeds has the technology to clone people and run simulations of the zombie virus spread in a huge ass facility. Yea, it’s revealed pretty early on in the movie so it’s not really a spoiler. In a nutshell, the movie is about Alice getting out of the facility with some help from her pals, new and returning ones alike.
Plot-wise, the movie makes sense because the series no longer makes any sense. By that, I mean if you adopt the RE movies’ insane, illogical thinking, everything makes sense. Two wrongs do make a right. That does not mean the story is by any means good though – not even in a “so bad it’s good” manner. There are major inconsistencies here and there, and some things magically happen without explanation. There is one huge plot twist early on in the movie, but it is presented in a manner that doesn’t feel like a surprise. To be honest here, I have forgotten a good chunk of the movie, partially because of the countless action sequences, and the hotness of Milla Jovovich, Bing Bing Li and Sienna Guillory. Michelle Rodriguez is not bad herself.
[Insert your own sarcastic comment here. I don’t have any.]
When it comes to the characters, they all exist to make Alice look bad ass. None of them, literally, is likable. Ever felt Alice was one-dimensional? That’s not going to change. The story writers tried introducing elements that make her seem multi-layered, but they just failed to work out. It might be Jovovich’s acting; it might be the writing. Either case, I did not walk out of the cinema liking her more. New characters were insanely overhyped. Leon S. Kennedy (Johann Urb) and Barry Burton (Kevin Durand) are extremely far off their game counterparts character-wise. As for Ada Wong (Bingbing Li), she is a slightly more faithful re-imagining of the femme fatale, though not by any means a good one. Neither of their origins was elaborated upon, nor was there any form of character development. They are, in short, replaceable.
Boy was he terrible. Anderson actually made Leon hateable. I know “hateable” is not a legit word. Once again, sue my broke ass. I have noting to lose.
Returning characters generally feel unnecessary. Other than Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), they all exist to make Paul W.S. Anderson’s wet dream come true. Some of these returning characters were dead, but managed to spring back to life because of Umbrella’s cloning tech. Rain Ocampo (Michelle Rodriguez) and Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr) showed up multiple times throughout the movie. Multiple clones of them exist and each duplicate contains a different personality. Yea, any traces of whom they were are nowhere to be found. The movie simply does not need them. Their return doesn’t add anything to the story or characters for that matter, and it doesn’t really make any statements. As for Jill Valentine, she is an antagonist in the movie, under direct control of Umbrella. I have already gone on and on about that ridiculous mind-control device strapped to her chest so I won’t talk about it again here. Anyways, she is one of the more “established” (and I’m using the word lightly) characters here, so at the very least, she adds something to the movie. She makes you sort of care. Well, not really. It was more of a “relatively speaking” statement there.
They don’t have personalities in the first place. Just replace them with generic evil soldier clones.
The visual aspect of Retribution is done well, and I am talking about both the 3D portion of the movie and the female cast. There are scenes which show off the gimmick for the sake of doing so (eg. Firing at the audience), but most of them feel right. Fight scenes are still corny, but you should have known what you’re signing up for at this point. There is a car chase, which is average. Gun fights could be better if the good guys brought the right weapons. Most importantly, as mentioned, the women in the movie are insanely hot. There is one scene which features Milla Jovovich covered by two pieces of cloth, with one on the front and another on the back, leaving the audience with quite a view. Does the costume make sense under those circumstances? No. Is more Milla Jovovich hotness awesome sauce? Yes. Am I complaining? Hell no. Bingbing Li looks good in that Chinese dress as well. Those heels are ridiculous, and I am nitpicking somewhat here, but she’s hot so whatever. (All that talk about defying against the patriarchal system? Wow, I’m a big time hypocrite. Perhaps we should start sexualizing the hell out of men as well.)
Hot damn.
With that said, Paul W.S. Anderson has yet to answer to my biggest complaint for the franchise. The movies have always felt too serious for me to like them. This is no different. It’s trying too hard to be art. It’s trying to be Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy when the original material doesn’t have enough substance for him to pull it off. The movie ends up feeling like a giant Milla Jovovich billboard. Not that there’s anything bad about focusing entirely on one character, it’s just that the movie has too large of a cast for an intimate experience to be possible.
Better luck next time.
Bottom line: If you have watched Resident Evil: Afterlife and actually liked it, Retribution is a souped up, more awesome version of that movie. If you are looking for a decent action flick which includes hot women kicking asses and requires no critical thinking whatsoever, this is also a movie for you. If you are looking for a decent story, avoid at all costs.
Requiem for a Tuesday, literally, has a better storyline than Resident Evil: Retribution. (See what I did there?)
6.3/10
4 of those points went to the ladies in the movie. The rest for 3D being done well enough. [Ed. Note – somehow this equals 3/5 Grizzly’s]
If you’ve read my previousentries on Resident Evil: Retribution 3D, then you’ll know for a fact that I don’t care for the movie. Not that much anyways. When it comes out, I’ll probably watch it simply because there is nothing particularly interesting going on in my life, and I need my entertainment. I’m so bored right now I’m actually listening to Nora Roberts’ (or JD Robb if you’re getting all worked up about pseudonyms) In Death series audio-books. They are not by any means bad; they’re just kind of tacky. Just saying…
Come to think about it, Eve Dallas has one of the corniest names ever. Dallas as your last name? Really? You get to name yourself and you decide on the name of a city? I know that’s where you’re found as a runaway kid but can you go for something a little less ridiculous, like “Jenkins” or even “Smith”?
Regardless of my “zero f***s given approach” towards the movie, Sony (or someone) decided to release (or leak) footage of Alice (Milla Jovovich) and Jill (Sienna Guillory) getting it on, and by getting it on, I mean “perform a bunch of style-over-substance fighting moves in those hideously tight catsuits while dubstep plays in the background.” As you may or may not know, Alice is our heroine of the franchise whereas Jill was one of the protagonists in the second movie, or the first one – I can’t really remember and am not bothered enough to look it up – before she was brainwashed by Albert Wesker through a ridiculous device strapped to her chest.
Sienna Guillory is hot but logic still applies.
I can’t stress enough how ridiculous it is to design a brainwashing device for chest attachment. For real, son? I know it’s taken from Resident Evil 5 (the game) but come on. It did not make sense then and it does not make sense now. Any person capable of normal human logic can tell it’s that thing located right above Jill’s boobs causing her to be eeeevvviiiiiilllllll. You can stick it on her back, in her nostrils, or even up her ass if you’re ballsy enough. All of these options are significantly less visible. But whatever, it’s Resident Evil. Nobody’s watching the movie for its logic or authenticity.
I swear the intent of implementing such a design is to see more skin.
The scene takes place on ice. Basically, you get to see people trash talk (but not actually hear what they’re saying because the dialogue portion of the audio was cut). Then, evil Rain (Michelle Rodriguez) injects something into her blood stream and knocks out Ada, who was held hostage. A shootout commences and a fight emerges.
*shivers in fear*
It turns out whatever Rain injected in her body makes her virtually bulletproof. Alice has her ass kicked and throws an ice axe at the audience because the movie is in 3D. You are obligated to have one of those shots if your movie is shot in 3D.
Wow, the 3D effects are sooooooooo realistic. It’s as if Alice is throwing an axe at me and I can actually die. I’m shook. Wait, I will actually die of the headache caused by 3D effects.
I can dig movies that are intentionally bad, movies that don’t take themselves too seriously. (eg Black Dynamite) Retribution looks bad and is taking itself way too seriously. Paul W.S. Anderson actually believes that his audience won’t cringe watching this flick.
Come on, brother. It’s not 1995. Flamboyant fighting styles don’t work no more. Roundhouse kicks are not badass anymore.
*door opens*
*Chuck Norris walks in*
*Chuck Norris bashes JasonDaPsycho’s face on the keyboard*
*Chuck Norris does a roundhouse kick on JasonDaPsycho*
*Chuck Norris leaves JasonDaPsycho lying half dead*
Roundhouse kicks are awesome. My bad.
Back to the topic, Anderson needs to stop pretending as if this movie is anything more than an action flick featuring video game characters. Once he comes to that understanding, I believe the movies will be much more enjoyable. That’s for me, at least.
Resident Evil: Retribution 3D will hit theaters on 14th September, 2012. The Judge Dredd reboot doesn’t come until a week after, so apparently, there is no choice.
With the fifth Resident Evil movie, Retribution finally coming together there was one loose end left before the film seemed complete. That loose end was actress Sienna Guillory reprising her role as ‘Jill Valentine’. It was at first assumed that she would be back, but then things were not so certain as she was keeping us all in suspense with Twitter updates.
The last update however, was that she was going to a meeting with director Paul W.S. Anderson and then this tweet followed soon after:
So it would appear everything is set for another Resident Evil and hopefully this is the last one set in this particular continuity. To me the franchise has gone as far as it could have with the Alice character, and the storyline in the post apocalyptic universe. At this point there will have been more movies set in the post apocalyptic world of Resident Evil than in the settings that made the games so great. I wouldn’t mind them rebooting the franchise eventually and starting from square one again.
What’s everyone else think? Are you as overjoyed as I am about Sienna Guillory returning? Do you think this is the last hurrah for the Paul W.S. Anderson Resident Evil franchise, or will the box office numbers speak for themselves?
If anyone is still interested in the Resident Evil movie franchise, then you’ll already know that there will be a fifth installment that will release on September 14th of 2012. Now it is indeed confirmed that not only will Milla Jovovich rejoin the cast (of course), but also Ali Larter(via Ali Larter Daily) and Sienna Guillory will indeed reprise their roles as ‘Claire Redfield’ and ‘Jill Valentine’ once again. That should be pretty interesting based on how the last movie Afterlife ended.
*Technically, Larter is still rumored, but Guillory and Jovovich are confirmed.
Also returning will be Jovovich’s husband and Director/Writer for Retribution,Paul W.S. Anderson. Now a lot of people think Paul W.S. Anderson is a terrible director and/or writer [Dr. Kronner – like me, I’m one of those people] and I can’t defend him by saying he’s great. But the guy definitely has a knack for making entertaining movies though. (Some might call that being mediocre) I enjoyed Death Race, Event Horizon, and the first Mortal Kombat movie when I was 11. Hell, I’ll even give him some credit for Soldier which was one of those ‘so bad it’s good’ films. Either way he can definitely keep delivering on Resident Evil movies which I honestly think have become stale by now. I couldn’t tell the difference between Afterlife and Extinction to tell you the truth and Retribution isn’t enough to get me to the theater. I’ll check it out on DVD but that’s about it.
Is there anything more awesome than a beautiful woman shooting a gun? Nope.
Also, there is no word on Wentworth Miller coming back as Chris Redfield respectively. It seems like there’s still time, but I don’t think the story will suffer much from his absence if he doesn’t return. And shut up, I know you’re laughing because I said “story” regarding a Resident Evil movie.
I really feel like playing Resident Evil 4 sometimes, but I don’t because hooking up my relic of a Gamecube is too much of a hassle, and I don’t own a Nintendo Wii. And if I want to play Code Veronica, forget about it, the last copy I have of that is on the Sega Dreamcast, and there is no way that sucker is going to work. But now, people like me can now breathe a sigh of relief…then inhale and let out a ‘Howard Dean-esque’ Yell of Joy!
According to IGN, both of these chapters in the Resident Evil zombie fest are returning to us via X-Box Live and the Playstation Network this fall.
And not only are they being re-released to us, but they will be getting an HD and visual overhaul. So yes… double awesome.
I can hardly wait for these games to be available again, though I will have to wait (in great anticipation) to see if they release a revamped Resident Evil 1 or Resident Evil: Zero to us in the near future.
But that’s not all, fans of Resident Evil have plenty in development to look forward to. Along with the revamped games coming up for download, Resident Evil: Damnation is to be released next year, which is a sequel to the computer animated Resident Evil: Degeneration.
Also Milla Jovovich and Sienna Guillory will return in 2012 as Alice and Jill Valentine respectively for the fifth Resident Evil movie.
The next big question then becomes: Where is the Resident Evil 6 game?
Grizzly Bomb 
