I've been a long time fan of the Resident Evil series even when people criticized them left and right. I thought they were really entertaining, stylish and inventive. Until now. There is no way I can stick up for this movie or any reason I'd even want to. I can't really give you a synopsis cause I'm not even sure what I just watched. All I can say is that it was huge disappointment in every facet possible. Despite the silliness of the previous films they always grounded themselves in some type of realism within the reigns of its premise. This entry doesn't even feel like it's a part of the same franchise. Gone is the fun and it's been replaced with ritzy production values and no discernible storyline. It's a movie based on a video game in which they are actually part of a video game and nothing is really happening. Despite a somewhat promising start with a cool reverse battle sequence, a best of franchise film reel and an inventive and even a little scary trip into suburbia we than move on to the supposed purpose of the film which just doesn't make sense at all. I mean the choices are just astoundingly bad why make the little girl deaf and the film filled with sign language, why set it in this underground facility, why is all of this happening, with this type of technology how does the remaining human population even have a chance, how is Wesker alive and why is he good now? he's not human??? None of these questions will be answered and lets not even discuss the frustratingly awkward scenes like one in which one of the good guys has a double unnecessary death, an uninspired nod towards the Alien franchise and repetitive scenarios that get less effective the more you see them (really the squid face things). Also, the acting has never been good in the Resident Evil series but Milla Jovovich had evoked a cool sense of fierce heroine, this time around she just seems plain bored as do the other actors. Filled with insipid dialogue, questionable plotting,overlong pacing, a weird bad movie from the 90's score, mediocre fight choreography (except for the scene with the chain) and a crapload of wasted potential this movie just feels like a bad dream. Sometimes, when I'm really looking forward to a movie I'll dream about it the night before and it will be horrible well this is what this feels like. Because in no possible way, what I just watched is a resident evil movie. Despite all of my complaining the movie does have some decent scenes the suburbia one I brought up before was kinda neat, another featuring Ada and Alice against 2 ax men and the chain fight in Tokyo. Besides that it's all just a big plodding waste of existential cinematic trash. A brainless, soulless unintentionally funny horror/action/sci fi hybrid that despite a larger budget,returning cast members and more impressive production values feels like an overlong filler episode that leaves me with a big question mark. Why has this happened to my beloved franchise???
Review of Resident Evil: Retribution
