This Resident deserves eviction
Latest instalment in Milla Jovovich franchise is by far the worst of the lot
Resident Evil:
Retribution
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, Bingbing Li. Directed by Paul W.S.
Anderson Playing in English at: Brossard, Cavendish, Cinéma Carnaval, Colossus,
Côte des Neiges, Deux Montagnes, Dorion, Forum,
Forum (Imax), Kirkland, Lacordaire, LaSalle, Marché
Central, Marché Central (Imax), Sources, Sphèretech, Taschereau, Taschereau
(Imax) cinemas Parents’ guide: frequent
violence Even video games have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but the Resident Evil movie franchise seems to hit the reset button every few years, offering up gratuitous violence and Milla Jovovich’s cleavage for the camera in the hopes of getting one more stack of quarters from your pocket.
At this point, they might as well, because they’ve cloned the central heroine Alice (Jovovich) — ensuring the game-based silliness will exist for as long as the producers feel a lingering desire to dress Jovovich in a black latex battle suit.
And despite the passing of the years, the former model can still pull off the skin-tight look, as well as the martial arts stunts.
Granted, it’s all done in slow-motion these days with the help of green screens and wires, which reduces the element of showmanship, but nonetheless provides some semblance of entertainment in an otherwise empty package.
Easily the worst outing in an already mediocre movie series, Resident Evil: Retribution opens in a slightly different looking world as Alice walks through a normal suburban home getting her kid ready to go to school.
Yet, within seconds a battle breaks out. Alice tries to save her child as the carnage begins, but she’s forced to watch her husband die before the screen turns black.
A few moments later we see her eyes open. She’s in a lab-like cell, wearing what appears to be a linen serviette. A short time later, her Plexiglas prison goes off-line, a drawer with black latex springs open and she’s back to her old self.
Or so it would seem. But as the set-up explains, the old Alice had special viral abilities endowed through mutation and genetic engineering: She had been used as a guinea pig by a morally bankrupt corporation that created a special zombie virus as a weapon.
The corporation thought it had Alice under its thumb, but a mutation allowed her to defeat the zombies — which in turn threatened the ruling power. The only way they could tame Alice was to make her an ordinary human once more, and that’s where this story picks up.
Alice is just a regular mortal, and now that she’s in the corporation’s underwater headquarters, she’s going to need a lot of help getting out. Fortunately, her former enemy is now on her side and hacking into the central server in a bid to set her free and start the revolution on the surface.
The script fails to exploit the obvious Biblical drama that stands before it, and gets lost in a maze of moronic action sequences that are neither eye-popping nor all that necessary.
Where other Resident Evil films at least offered up some interesting special effects, this one looks and feels lowbudget.
Not even the kid plot line is given enough time or concern. Alice finds the cloned child back in the suburban environment where she’s been hiding since the opening act. When the kid sees Alice, she thinks it’s her mom.
Jovovich does her best to bring some genuine edge to a generic exercise, but her efforts are squandered in this whistling cinematic vacuum where every character feels cloned and every scrap of plot feels clichéd.
In the film, Alice is shown an exit by a benevolent force from above. The moviegoer, alas, will have to grope for the door alone.