RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION
US, 2012, 95 minutes, Colour.
Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, Bingbing Li, Kevin Durand.
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.
Number 5 in the franchise. And the film: shootouts and chases, chases and shootouts, then more shootouts and chases. The series derives from computer games and has that kind of aggressive plot, characters who are more cyphers of good and evil rather than personalities, special effects that enable guns to blaze, blaze and then blaze some more.
The opening does give a resume of what happened in the previous episodes (the first one ten years ago), so we are reminded of the dastardly doings of the Umbrella Company and how it developed malicious viruses which by this stage are monstrous zombies (who do a fair amount of chasing and of being shot) whose mouths open to repulsive extended tongues.
Milla Jovovich (who is now married to her director, Paul Anderson) is once again heroine Alice, svelte, leatherbound, agile and nimble – and deadly. Except that he has acquired a daughter (with happy memory implants), which gives her more motive for defence and attack. There are her old allies, her old enemies.
There is an interesting feature in Rainbow’s setting up experimental neighbourhoods, Moscow, New York and Suburbia. The Moscow sequences at least arrest the eye with something different.
Retribution? Not exactly. Rather, when the film looks as if it will end, it goes on to a Washington DC, White House sequence which, we realise, serves as a trailer for the next installment. Maybe retribution will come next time. In the meantime, it’s repetition!
1. The place of this film in the series? The development over ten years? Repetitions?
2. The visuals: the sets, the special effects? Suburbia, the streets and homes? Moscow, the streets, the underground railway stations in detail? New York City? The fleet, the submarines, the sea? The finale and Washington, DC and the White House? The pounding musical score?
3. The title? Retribution for whom? Alice? The Rainbow Corporation and its leaders?
4. The stunts, the chases, the shootouts, the weaponry? The martial arts and agility?
5. The special effects and the zombies, the monsters and their behaviour, the confrontations?
6. Alice, at home, the husband, the daughter? The attack in the house? The zombies? Her husband overpowered? Her taking Becky to save her? The pursuit? The various adventures? Her being transformed? The Rainbow Corporation, restoring her to the warrior? Her clothes? Seeing her in action, the pursuit, the chases, the railway station, the young woman helping – and her death? The pursuit by Jill Valentine and Rain? The men? Her allies, coming to her help? The plans?
7. The journey, searching? Alice and the various activities to save Becky? The truth about Becky, seeing the clones? Her memories? Her husband amongst the attackers?
8. The Rainbow Corporation, the head, the history of the virus, its being unleashed, its effect, on Alice? The elimination of the human race?
9. The final confrontations, the defeat of the enemies? Taking Jill Valentine’s brooch and restoring her to normal? Rain and her death?
10. Going to Washington, DC, the explanations, the White House – the group assembled on the roof? Ready for the next film? Appropriate retribution?
