Resident Evil: Retribution (Trailer 6-14-12)

[MiLØ]

Well as expected the opening sequence was pretty good and the rest of the movie is just bleh. The first 5 minutes where only music plays and everything goes in reversed slow-mo - is the only well done thing in this film. The same was with Resident Evil Afterlife when they showed the rainy Tokyo and the spark of the outbreak.
Those opening clips are so good that it makes me wonder if it was the same person directing the rest of the movie. If Anderson really did it then he should just team up Tomandandy and keep making music videos instead.

[Rombie]

So yesterday I picked up one of my friends, the only one I could convince to come see the film - even though it was free!, and used my free double pass to go see an early evening session. Film was in the largest cinema in the house and there was probably only 20 people in the cinema.

Now I'm not here to defend the film, but I can't understand anyone who says this is the worst in the series... I mean the entire series, yeah stupid, cheesy, action brainless mess but the film I saw yesterday was more action packed and more happened than in Afterlife, and seemingly even made my biggest beef with the previous film (why an Executioner turns up at random) seem more explained. Also Anderson got to cheat with his graphic maps again so at least scenes once linked together rather than just jumping around heaps. Well most of them, some of the early stuff in the "suburbs" and "Japan" had some odd editing choices.

That said I still continue to see nothing but missed chances and missed ideas. I see that Anderson was trying to draw paralells to the first film (with underground location, time limit, a licker, red queen, etc. etc.) but it falls flat under a weighted mess of silly ideas, bad plot, and terrible acting (that scene between Leon and Alice where he tells her not to climb up the ladder is perhaps some of the worst stilted acting I've ever seen in my life). My first thought when it's revealed where they are and what the location is, plus the clones, is like.... isn't that missing the point. Umbrella can make perfect clones with imprinted memories and spend money in recreating locations down to the smallest detail... there seems like there is more money to be made back in that rather than bio-weapons. Apparently I'm not the only person to think this, I saw in the news the link to the Red Letter guys and they came to the same conclusion I did. Plus I loved the irony of after reading Jovovich's bemoaning the 'hardcore' fans and mentioning not making something like Caliban Cove (?wtf?) that they then did something which was like the Underworld novel.... nice work on drawing that conclusion for us Milla.

Sometimes things I saw as missed oppertunities were small (like when Alice escapes the laser grid the first time, somehow the same grid wasn't used when the zombies chased her and the doors shut - as would have made an awesome scene - or that they couldn't even bother to get body doubles for Chris, Claire, and K-Mart for the opening scene so you saw them run away or just their backs rather than nothing at all), sometimes they were large and obvious too. Action sequences mixed between surprisingly good and extremely bad. And I was hoping the Las Plagas soldiers would, when attacked, start changing like the ones in RE4 and 5, but no luck. Again one of those major missed chances. I "get" the Licker keeping people for later food, and the fact it's bigger and stronger from eating - under Anderson's "grown on feeding on DNA" thing - but it still didn't stop it from being a big old Aliens rip. Plus the whole suburbs thing is almost a complete recreation of Znyder's Dawn remake, right down to the truck/car accident... again something I wasn't the only to notice. In a franchise background that allows so much original ideas to be used, why does he just continue to rely on instead using other movie ideas? I mean I know the games are filled with many themselves, but there is an allowable difference in the switch of mediums. Using filmic reference in games is just reference, it's unfortunately allowed... if you use it in the same medium, then you're just ripping it and being lazy.

I could have nitpicked over several other details but in the end the movie doesn't take itself that seriously most of the time, and so why should I? So I walked out thinking I'd seen a stupid film of course, but one that surprised me by being so bad it was perhaps the most entertaining of the franchise. I wanted so much to rip on it like I was able to with Afterlife because it was not only boring, but a poor piece of film making, but I just found I couldn't be as harsh on Retribution no matter how stupid it was. It's silliest moments made me laugh, and in making me laugh it entertained. I've haven't felt so conflicted or guilty for enjoying a movie for quite some time.

Still the movie has been a flop unseen on the scale of the franchise... now dropping 77% in takings on it's previous week (a franchise record) and is likely only just to make just more than the first film in the US overall. Of course this doesn't take into account overseas takes, and if it makes mega millions again no doubt Anderson and Jovovich will return to make their 6th (and hopefully) final film. If Sony didn't let Spiderman stagnate, then with any luck Constantine and Sony will reboot in 2 films time and maybe we'll be lucky to see a more well considered take on the franchise.

[Becky's Butt]

Umbrella is stupid. Game or movies, they are the height of incompetence and evil for tHE sake of evil. I'm pretty sure there's more money to be made in perfected cloning technology like we saw with Sergei than there is to be made in bio-weapons.

The movies are dumb yeah but so are the games. I've grown quite tired of the game franchise as of late and realize just how absurd and idiotic most of it is.

I just watched Afterlife for the first time and I thought it was the second best movie of the series. Extinction was easily the worst. That movie was just doomed from the start because Anderson pulled the global apocalypse out of his ass. You can't go from citywide outbreak to the Earth is doomed. But now that the Earth is doomed already, we can move on. Things flow a lot better.

Afterlife also had a fantastic opening. People whined about Super-Alice and her clone army? Clone army gets nuked and Alice gets returned to a normal human. I dig it.

I like Shawn Roberts' Wesker. It reminds me of classic Albert before he became a cartoon character in CV and RE5. He had the superpowers but he had the decency not to go MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The stoic, unflappable villain is the most intimidating for me.

My biggest problem with Afterlife was that the climax was too short. Too much time was wasted on slow-mo mass zombie fighting when we could have a longer chat with Wesker or at least an extended fight scene.

Now...onto Retribution.

The environments were the best in the series. It blended sci-fi locations and urban environments and then wrapped things up on an icy plane Extinction and Afterlife suffered a lot from having "desolate ruins" as the location for most of teh films.

Michelle Rodriguez returning is very much welcomed. The first movie had my favorite cast and she was a big reason for that. Bad Rain kicked all kinds of ass although I was of course bugged by her Las Plagas giving her Saddler-like powers when there was nothing at all to say her LP was any different from all the mooks' and yet they didn't have the bullet-sponge ability.

Jill returning in a catsuit and beating the crap out of Alice was also pretty good. In fact, the movie fixed my main complaint about Afterlife in that a proper-length climax. You had Leon/Luther vs. Rain and Alice vs. Jill and it all just worked.

Then of course came the ending. Loves that fucking ending.
It certainly did what it was supposed to do - I'm going to see RE6 when it comes out.

[fishboil]

Anyone has seen CinemaSnob's review? I found it more interesting that RedLetterMedia's one. One of the people talking actually has played older games. Good stuff.

http://thecinemasnob.com/2012/09/20/resident-evil-retribution-review.aspx

I like Shawn Roberts' Wesker. It reminds me of classic Albert before he became a cartoon character in CV and RE5. He had the superpowers but he had the decency not to go MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The stoic, unflappable villain is the most intimidating for me.

I personally thought he was hamming it up. That's good, since the movie is a joke in itself. And because of that, I kind of like him.

[Becky's Butt]

Afterlife and Retribution have definitely lost the pretense of super-seriousness though, which is part of why I like them more than Apocalypse and Extinction.

[fishboil]

Apocalypse and Extinction pretended were serious? LOL

While I watched Apocalypse for the first time, I thought it was a joke. Apocalypse and Extinction were just as stupid, only in smaller doses, like the motorcycle stunt scene in church, crying Nemesis, clone Alices etc. Apocalypse and Extinction already went full derp, and I don't see much difference from sequels.
The original movie tried to pretend that it is serious though.
And actually, the original is not that very far off, but it's stupidity is in much smaller doses. It looks like they tried to make the original as serious movie, but it's cliches, monotone dialogue, crappy CGI death scenes just made it laughable. Sometimes I don't know which is worse, PG-13 movie where you don't see all that shitty CGI blood, or R rating with shitty CGI blood you have to endure through.

[Becky's Butt]

Yes, Apocalypse and Extinction tried to be serious. They both were still trying for horror.

Horror went out the window with Afterlife. It's just straight-up RE4 level action there. Actually, that's fitting - RE4 the game and RE4 the movie marked an evolution of self-awareness. They finally understood nobody took the ridiculous plot seriously and so they had fun with it.

[fishboil]

And you could say the same about Afterlife (haven't seen Retribution yet). They tried some cheap horror scares, and pathetically tried to set the horror mood in that building they were in for most of the movie in Afterlife. Sure, they had ninja clones etc., but 2 and 3 had crying Nemesis, the motorcycle stunt scene in church, humorous black sidekick in Apocalypse, the clone revelation, zombie fishing (that's deleled scene). Just because Apocalypse and Extinction had a bit less trololol scenes, doesn't mean it tried to be serious, because in the end, they are in the same soup. Actually, with a little more trying, Apocalypse could've been a comedy. It had some very funny scenes.

The original was not that far away actually, just because trololol scenes of that movie are in smaller doses. But I have to admit that the original tried to be as a ''serious'' horror movie, just a ''little.''

You should watch Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2, to see a sequel not taking itself seriously.

[alexdz]

Yes, Apocalypse and Extinction tried to be serious. They both were still trying for horror.

Horror went out the window with Afterlife. It's just straight-up RE4 level action there. Actually, that's fitting - RE4 the game and RE4 the movie marked an evolution of self-awareness. They finally understood nobody took the ridiculous plot seriously and so they had fun with it.

I think that's an unfair comparison, RE4 still had the the village at night, Regenerators and the bit with Ashley for horror, Afterlife doesn't even try.

[ValentineLover]

Umbrella can make perfect clones with imprinted memories and spend money in recreating locations down to the smallest detail... there seems like there is more money to be made back in that rather than bio-weapons

The perfect location recreations where pre-outbreak I think, and the one at charge in Umbrella is Skyn...I mean the Red Queen, who is trying to wipe out everyone and mind controlling the others, so that's why they dont use the clones to "repopulate"

[Rombie]

The perfect location recreations where pre-outbreak I think, and the one at charge in Umbrella is Skyn...I mean the Red Queen, who is trying to wipe out everyone and mind controlling the others, so that's why they dont use the clones to "repopulate"

Yeah but we're not talking about that, we're talking back when Umbrella actually had human staff running the place. When the weapons are being developed to be sold to all the different countries around the world. It's sometimes one of those things you see in movies where to nessistate a plot a more important technology that would have been better was ignored. In this case the perfect cloning and facility built are far more interesting and going to be far far more profitable than the whole stupid bio-weapon selling triple crossing crap.

The thing is I figure Anderson means this happened after the Raccoon outbreak started to spread and countries wanted to protect themselves from large scale outbreaks, and Umbrella - being generally evil - jumped at the chance to sell bioweapons to everyone... but it's not mentioned, and therefor looks very stupid.

[xfactor]

I assume that you won tickets in a competition..

Remember guys, admitting to piracy is a bannable offence...

No I didnt won any tickets and piracy wasn't involved too so don't worry. I don't think it was leak anyway isn't it?
It was a movie treat... As for how, I can't say here unfortunately ..

[Becky's Butt]

Rombie, your post reminded me of something. In Apocalypse, we learned the T-Virus had some pretty amazing potential for medical use. As I recall it cured whatever Ashford's daughter had.

That was one of the few things I liked about Apocalypse. It was interesting.

Then Anderson obviously couldn't think of a way to make a sequel to that and so we got Extinction.

What is it with Paul and needing to have a rotating cast? Why couldn't we have Clair and Chris again in this movie? Why dos Alice always need a new little girl to look after?