Review: Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) - Paul W.S. Anderson

"You two made it... I thought I was the only one that survived. What is this place and why is everything in Russian? And what's with the S&M getup?"

          I can’t say I was looking forward to seeing this film, the series so far has been really disappointing, the games which the story is loosely based off are some of my favourites so its such a pity to see the characters treated this way.

          The story of this film picks up exactly where the last one ended with Alice captured by the Umbrella Corporation and being held in their secret underwater research centre. It’s actually not that unbelievable a scenario for the franchise. In this particular facility, Umbrella have built simulations of various major cities from around the world in order to show off their biological weapons to countries that could use them against each other a la cold war nuclear missiles style. These simulations are filled with clones of various past characters who have appeared in this franchise, allowing previous actors to return and in some cases play two roles, which is quiet an interesting idea. There’s not really much more I can say about the plot without giving it away, so let’s talk about the film in general.

          The story’s consistent with previous films in the franchise, as in not that great and really doesn’t hold up to too close an examination but is still decent, the character development is very hit and miss, mainly miss but some characters do grow and change, most stay the same as can be expected with the fifth film in any franchise, dialogue is its usual cheesy self and is full of typical action movie clichés. However the fight and action scenes are where this movie really shines and can give bigger budget movies a run for their money.

Having said all that these films are a guilty pleasure, judge me all you want. But their great popcorn movies and I can enjoy it at that level and check off my brain and have a good time. Would I recommend it to anyone? Yeah, anyone looking to kill a bit of time, that enjoys good action movies and can leave their brain at the door, it also a great film to watch drunk or drinking with friends, not for everyone though. I’d rate this film as a 4.5/10 not a horrible film, but by no means a good one.

Opinions: World War Z Trailer #1 (and the film in general)

Am I the only one that thinks this has potential?

Film Teaser Poster

          The trailer starts out with Brad Pitt and his family in a car and then shows the world going to hell as the Zombie’s start to take over the world and overwhelm every country across the globe. That’s right it’s a Zombie apocalypse movie, but the difference is this one is based on the book of the same name by Max Brooks author of the well known book The Zombie Survival Guide. This book serves as a sort of sequel to the popular (spoof) guide book and follows the rules and mythology set out within it. However the difficult part in adapting the book to film was in the narrative structure employed by Brooks, which is a series of individual accounts from various people around the world collected and presented in chronological order. Not a very film friendly narrative, so I liked the decision to have the movie focus on a UN worker whose job is to collect any information that may be useful to help stop the spread of the disease and find a cure, which allows the story to maintain its world scope and have certain characters/stories from the book shown in the film.

 

Book Cover

          Some people have taken issue with the vibe of the trailer which has a Cloverfield/I Am Legend feel to it, saying we don’t need another New York disaster movie and I think the New York scene could just be the first fifteen/twenty minutes of the movie, equally it could be a large chunk of it, but it’s too soon to judge that. Other’s have complained about the CGI super strength and fast zombies and while I along with most Zombie fans prefer the deadly slow creeping zombies, I think fast zombies can be just as scary.

          The film has also had a lot of troubles behind the scenes and was originally due out  for around this time this year but has instead been pushed back to next summer so as the final third of the film could be rewritten by Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard (both from Lost) and reshot. So while I am optimistic about this film, I am only cautiously so but only time will tell and I will be checking this film out next summer. What do you make of the trailer?