Resident Evil: Retribution

Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez

Rating: I Didn't Like It

I seriously considered giving this movie an "I Hated It" rating, but my fondness for all things Resident Evil kept me from being that cruel.  If it wasn't for the fact that I've been such a huge fan of the games, books and mythos that is the RE franchise and my belief that you shouldn't return things just cause you made a poor purchase decision, I probably would've asked for my money back at the theater.  

I will say that the first movie in the series was OK as far as movies in this genre go, but that I was disappointed that it didn't really follow the plot of the game at all.  Well, I guess I should say that it was VERY loosely based on the game.  When your main character didn't even appear in the game at all, I would call that a loose adaptation.  Some people would say, "How could you base it off the game?  Those movies never turn out well either.", and they would be right about that second half of the statement.  On the other hand, I have read the novelization of the first game, and it could've easily been developed into a script and a movie.  

What the movies have done since then that I like is add a little more of the video games into them in each movie.  For example, in Resident Evil: Apocalypse - I think that's the right one, but honestly does it really matter? - we got to see Nemesis, and I have to say that he looked pretty awesome.  We also got to see other characters from the series added to the film continuity.  Jill Valentine, Carlos Olivera, the Ashfords, Chris and Claire Redfield and others were added into the mix.  We also got to see more of the monsters from the games.  All this was a help, but the RE movies just never panned out to be what I thought they could be.   

At the very bottom of this post, I'm going to post the original opening to the first game of the series.  I completely understand that the acting in this is atrocious and the the visuals are not good either.  However, it does give you a feel for what I thought the first movie should've been like. I'd have been fine with them playing with the story a little, but something more along these lines would've been awesome.  

The Good: 

• The CG in the movie was some of the best I've seen.  The budget here definitely went into the graphics and not, well, anything else really.  
• The action sequences were good.  I think most people go into this knowing that it's not going to be good, just as I did, but going for the connection to something they do enjoy or looking for big explosions, and on that front, it definitely delivered.  
• I know I just mentioned the action, but I want to be specific.  The car chase toward the last act of the movie was pretty awesome.  

The Bad: 

• The casting was poor as usual.  I stumbled onto a site a while back that was about casting the Resident Evil universe.  It had some awesome suggestions.  Check it out HERE.  Given, some of those are solely based on the similarities in appearance, but almost anything would have to be better than some of the choices.  
• One side note here is that the casting of Bingbing Li as Ada Wong was right on the money as far as her appearance with.  Also, I still hate Michelle Rodriguez as much as always.  
• The reemergence of the Red Queen.  I hated this AI's role in the first movie, and I hated it in this one. I don't mean I hated the character as was intended by her role in the movie; I mean that I hated that they included this role at all.  
• I also didn't care for the licker in this movie.  There was a licker in the first film.  It was kind of the final "boss" of the movie if you will.  It was proportionate to the ones from the game, and it was in line with the feel of the movie.  Although, the giant, monstrous licker that is in this movie is proportionate with the ridiculousness of the film, I still didn't care for it.  It's like no one could come up with a new, bigger monster for the film, so, they just made a giant version of a recycled idea.  
• Other than that, pretty much everything in the movie that wasn't mentioned above was bad.  EVERYTHING!

The Ugly: 

• I'm not even going to try and begin to describe how horrible the acting was in this movie, but it is by far the worst I've seen in a major Hollywood production in a long time, maybe ever.  It made me uncomfortable.  
• The sequences where the dramatic music swelled for what seemed like endless moments only to end at a much less than climactic moment.  It's like the scene below from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Lancelot charges the castle in that the scene takes forever for Lancelot to reach his destination.  It differs from the scene however in that in the clip below it is used for comic effect, and something does actually happen once he reaches the castle.  To make this like a scene Retribution, Lancelot would've had to have made it to the castle and died before reaching the guards.   

• I would mention the plot holes, but what's the point?  
• Finally, at one point in the movie, Ada explains the escape she has planned for Alice and herself.  It's so much like listening to the opening scene of a video game that it practically made my brain hurt.  I would love to have seen these movies be more like the game's story, not exactly like a video game.  

Here's the trailer as usual: