While it's unquestionably dumb as dirt, this Resident Evil picture somehow provides braindead zombie-annihilation entertainment....
Sony / 96 Minutes / 2012 / Rated R / Street Date: December 21, 2012
The Resident Evil franchise has evolved into something almost redundantly reliable: a set of zombie-murder movies that really don't care if you like them or not. This guy still can't wrap his brain around how the films are able to still be made (who sees these things?), but even more than that, I wonder why even a devout Resident Evil lover still gives a crap about Alice and her quest to save the world from the undead mutants who stalk her and her fellow remaining Earth-bound humans around every corner.
It boils down to one word: Milla.
Paul W.S. Anderson is notorious as being a slapshot director at best (what, no Oscars for Alien vs. Predator or Mortal Kombat?), but he realizes one thing above all: That Milla is a hot mama of such a pedigreed design that even the most inane of plot twists swirling around her can be countered with a flitter of her L'Oreal eyelashes. And there's a bunch of that in Resident Evil: Retribution - in fact, there's an argument that could be made that this new installment goes out of its way to bring things back to the franchise's video game roots.
Resident Evil: Retribution has Alice find herself in a strange virtual reality compound where she has to fight the undead - all hailing to the grotesque powers of a nasty "Red Queen" - in a number of switcheroo-backdrop scenarios. There is blood, guts, slow-motion martial arts gymnastics, chicks in tight tops, dudes sweating through tank tops - we've this all before. But somehow Milla makes the brazen stupidity of Resident Evil: Retribution watchable. Terrible on all fronts, but watchable nonetheless. Thanks, M.
