REVIEW: Video-Game Sensibility Of Resident Evil: Retribution Makes For Unsettling But Unsatisfying Experience
It's a big week for the filmmaking Paul Andersons. Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master opened in a handful of cinemas in New York and Los Angeles, and Paul W.S. Anderson's Resident Evil: Retribution in theaters everywhere (in 3D and otherwise). While The Master offers up a immersive, abstract look at an unstable man being courted by the head of a cult-like movement, Resident Evil: Retribution in its own way also departs from the usual narrative confines of moviemaking. It's the closest thing you'll find yet to a recreation of a video game sensibility on the big screen — which is in line with the franchise's source material — and makes for a memorably unsettling if not particularly satisfying viewing experience.
Resident Evil: Retribution finds action star (and Anderson spouse) Milla Jovovich returning to play Alice, a former employee turned sworn enemy of the evil Umbrella Corporation. Considering how crazily far and, frankly, nonsensical the story has gotten from its start as the story of a weaponized virus infecting a secret genetic research facility, the film pays surprising attention to the basic premise before skimming over the developments of the more recent installments in an intro sequence. The series' ability to shuck off its own history is put on display in the initial action scene, which picks up where the last film left off: a slow-motion sequence of explosions and gunfire that runs backwards before lurching forward at full speed to neatly do away with the Arcadia and any other surviving characters on board.
Then again, who cares about those guys? The Resident Evil films have clearly become a continuing discombobulated nightmare belonging to Alice and Alice alone. Again and again, she seems to find safety, only to wake up in some new, terrible scenario in which she has to fight for her life. Resident Evil: Retribution takes this idea to its end point by being set in an underwater Umbrella-run base in which different test stages have been built for the company to demonstrate its bioweapons. All-white hallways string together life-size recreations of Times Square, downtown Tokyo, central Moscow and a suburban street. Each houses a scenario in which, at the bidding of the central A.I., swarms of infected humans, ax-wielding mutants or zombie soldiers will be released to attack.
Resident Evil: Retribution, in other words, has taken great pains to find a way to have real-life game stages. This sensibility extends to the way the film explains its mission — rendezvous with a rescue team and find a way out — and the way it provides weapons for its characters: armories rise out of the ground, or, in a sequence that demonstrates definite game logic, Alice looks in an abandoned cop car, heads to a nearby bike to take its chain, smashes in the window and adds both her new tool and a gun from the vehicle to her inventory.
This is even the case in the way actors from earlier installments in the franchise — Michelle Rodriguez and Oded Fehr — are folded into the film, thanks to Umbrella's fondness for cloning. A glimpse of multiple versions of Alice in storage also reinforces the idea that if she were to die, she could just respawn and start over.
Video games and movies have an uneasy partnership. The first Resident Evil is one of the best of a shaky history of adaptations from console to big screen, but the franchise has skewed toward the sensibility of the former medium rather than the latter in a way that's unique but tiresome. At its best, Resident Evil: Retribution feels like a series of elaborate cut scenes strung together, but much of the time it's a reminder of how incredibly unfun it can be to sit around watching someone else play without getting a chance yourself.
The film's extravagant action scenes have not a whiff of consequence to them, and other than Alice, the foremost quality of all of the characters is their disposability. A sequence like the one in which clones of familiar characters are put through an impossible test scenario is genuinely disconcerting in how it shakes up our perceptions of the reality of what's on screen. But even that becomes a reminder that bringing one of the traditional qualities of a video game protagonist — his or her qualified immortality — to a movie further strips any sense of human investment in the character. Any consistency on screen is entirely stylistic: there are no rules in this universe other than that Alice will battle on, defying gravity and physics and looking fabulous despite the world eternally ending all around her.
Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter.
Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube
Comments
It is important that people stop blaming the poor quality of this movie on its attempt to imitate a video game. In reality, video games are attempting to be more like films. For instance, Heavy Rain & The Walking Dead are great examples of games that feel like movies. Resident Evil: Retribution was bad because the creators made a bad movie, simple as that. Non-stop action appeals to some people, but it NEVER equates to a well developed film.
Why are they still making Resident Evil is a great mystery...and it is yet another proof that watching games and playing games is a completely different experience- and one that probably should not be continued...
I have been a fan of all the previous films. But this sounds to be very redundant!
Please if you get a chance to, review Chhay Bora's Lost Loves. This movie is powerful enough to make a difference in many countries. Every screening has the entire audience sobbing with tears. If you do not know of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia it is a shame. But many don't. How can 1.7 million people be murdered without everyone knowing. Many people love to watch movies and dream about Zombie Apocalypses. It happened in Cambodia and the US had a hand in it. Lost Loves is more powerful than "Killing Fields". This movie is well done even though it is very low budget. The acting is tremendous. The impact is GREATNESS. Why waste your time reviewing movies that people will forget they watched 28 days later.
I am a fan of all the “Resident Evil” movies, and I am also a fan of the video games. My co-worker at DISH is an avid fan of the games, and refuses to watch the movies. These movies were not built on creating a deep story line; it’s an action movie plan and simple. I’m going to wait to see this in the theaters, and instead will revisit the previous films, and rent them with my Blockbuster @home account. The shipping is fast, and once I’m done I can return my movie in for a new one in my queue instead of waiting for it in the mail. With the Resident Evil franchise, you have to put aside your judgment for these films, and accept them as they are.
What? Why should anyone give any leeway to a film just because it's action? You know how many GREAT action movies are made? How about halfway-decent action movies? Even in the action/adventure genre this film is terrible. It doesn't even care about itself. Anderson has completely run out of ideas.
This film had some of the best action sequences so far in the series. Cant wait for the next one!!!
When i saw the ending scene Jet Li's movie The One popped up in my mind what ideas ran out from them
Nice blog here! Also your web site loads up very fast!
What web host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host?
I wish my website loaded up as quickly as yours lol
Thank you for any other excellent article. Where else could anybody get that kind of info in such
a perfect way of writing? I have a presentation subsequent week, and I'm on the look for such info.
Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you
relied on the video to make your point. You clearly know what youre talking about,
why waste your intelligence on just posting videos to your site when you could be giving
us something enlightening to read?
My website szkolenie elektrohydraulika
I absolutely love your blog and find almost all of your post's to be exactly what I'm looking
for. can you offer guest writers to write content in your case?
I wouldn't mind composing a post or elaborating on a number of the subjects you write related to here. Again, awesome web site!
My website szkolenie autocad inventor
I need to to thank you for this excellent read!! I absolutely enjoyed every little bit
of it. I've got you book-marked to look at new stuff you post…
My website profi bus
I was curious if you ever thought of changing the layout of your site?
Its very well written; I love what youve got to say.
But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could
connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having 1 or two images.
Maybe you could space it out better?
My website diagnostyka w sieci profibus dp
I'm amazed, I must say. Rarely do I come across a blog that's equally educative and amusing,
and let me tell you, you've hit the nail on the head. The problem is something too few people are speaking intelligently about. Now i'm very happy I stumbled
across this during my hunt for something regarding this.
- http://penisverlangerungx.at - Regards hfi0owv2
This post provides clear idea in support of the new
people of blogging, that really how to do blogging and site-building.
- http://www.zvacseniepenisux.com/
rgrds hl3c53yx
Those Resident Evil movies are AWESOME! Haven't seen this one yet, but i'm sure it must be great! Very well made, very imaginative! I think Director/Writer Anderson really loved the "Alice in Wonderland" story and now is doing his own "Alice in Horrorland" thing. Great 3D too!
Je m'appelle Amitee.
J'ai vingt-neufA .
Je suis une pépiniériste ... il apparaît que je suis blagueuse.
Je suis une femme de quarante printemps !
Mes parents m'ont appellée Belle et j'aime beaucoup ce prénom.
Ce que je fais de beau dans la vie, comptable ! Mon naturel est plutôt réservé.
Ici Alexandrie
Je souffle mes 38 bougies dans un mois .
Mon travail pépiniériste . Il est dit de moi que je semble un phénomène.
J'ai 38A !
Ici Alexandrie
Mon occupation principale, graphiste ! Il est dit parfois que je semble je m'en foutiste.
A feature-rich option to harness creativity and concentration through the Alpha state is Alpha - Mind.
You get excellent health and you won't fall sick easily.
For convenience,I just eat the same foods everyday.
Hey superb website! Does running a blog such as this require a lot
of work? I have absolutely no knowledge of computer programming however I had
been hoping to start my own blog in the near future.
Anyway, if you have any suggestions or tips for new blog owners
please share. I understand this is off topic however I simply wanted
to ask. Many thanks!