Resident Evil: Retribution: Slick, Fierce and Thrilling
Director: Paul W.s. Anderson
cast: Milla Jovovich, Boris Kodjoe, Oded Fehr, Li Bingbing, Johann Urb, Sienna Guillory, Kevin Durand, Shawn Roberts,Michelle Rodriguez, Colin Salmon
Rating: 3
Milla Jovovich thrust her way into the territory she accomplished in Resident Evil: Retribution, the fifth videogame-based zombie apocalypse flick in the franchise.
In a rare respite from her trademark skin-tight leathers and vicious buckle wear, Alice (Jovovich) does a turn in suburbia as a jeans-clad, blond mom with an adorable little girl. It’s not too long before all hell breaks loose, sending building blocks plummeting as zombie's rampaged around the death-end street just to gulp down brains and blood.
The film is all about the thrill of killing zombies, and Resident Evil: Retribution doesn’t disappoint in that department. It’s all the same bloodbath as the first four flicks, with 3D effects hurling blood, blades and body parts into the audience amid a non-stop barrage of gunfire and explosions.
Alice is aided by a few good men- Boris Kodjoe, Johann Urb, Kevin Durand, and some of whom she seems to know from earlier movies. Meanwhile, a controlling computer called the Red Queen, who resemblance a grumpy child and a monster make life complicated for the handful band of renegade.
Alice ends up doing some globetrotting along with new sidekick Ada Wong (Bingbing Li). They stride tenaciously down a deserted Yonge St., the high-high slit in Ada’s red cheongsam revealing a menacing weapon strapped to her impressive thigh.
Once again, rugged eyed Alice stands with no fear and whips huge rifles to battle with monsters, drooling zombies and bad guys employed by nasty mega-industry The Umbrella Corporation- the deadly virus Umbrella cooked up for biological warfare gain which also turns victims into flesh-eating zombies which were still out there and being tested on international populations in worldwide sales pitches.
Fight scenes are frequent. Slow-motion digital trickery makes bullets dance and dive while Alice soars through the air, leaping from one victim to the next with guns blazing. Writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson windup the non-stop conflict with x-rays that show bones breaking and hearts being ripped from arteries as the blows land.
The special effects are remarkable but it’s easy to grow drained of them, making this Resident Evil look like what it is: a movie shot on a sound stage with a violent digital world created around it.