Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
By the end of Resident Evil: Afterlife you kind of wish for a reset button that takes the series back to it's roots low and behold Retribution begins in the suburbs of Raccoon City, with Alice (Milla Jovovich) and her family enjoying a normal, everyday morning... then the zombies attack. Admittedly this scenario isn't the actual basis for the whole film, but it almost brought the series back to it's gaming origin.
It turns out Alice is a prisoner of Umbrella Corp and this suburban setting is one of it's artificial environments along with downtown Tokyo, New York, Moscow and other cities, that the ruthless corporation use to scare the superpower nations into buying their weapons of warfare. Alice together with some familiar faces from past films, need to escape the landscape created by Umbrella and try to destroy the Corp from within.
Resident Evil Retribution is then one big video game of a movie. Action all the way, however it's not absurd OTT action, well it is, but it's a little closer to reality than the previous installment. The film uses bullets, lots of bullets, and plays like a more straightforward action film albeit with zombies, lickers and axe men. Jovovich as ever is excellent, always commanding the screen whether it be in the numerous action scenes or the occasional quieter moments.
A big thumbs up to director Paul WS Anderson too. I still can't believe Anderson pulled this film off with only $60 million. We have all these major cities getting wrecked and flooded (and the effects are incredible). Most filmmakers require nearly $200 million to achieve what this film does.
In all fairness this isn't going to appeal across the board, but for what it is - guns, monsters and slinky fetish wear (Welcome to the party Sienna Guillory in your purple catsuit) - Resident Evil Retribution proved a crowd pleaser and thoroughly entertained me for ninety minutes and will be one i continue to revisit in the future
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