Last weekend, the newest installment of the “Resident Evil” franchise, Paul Anderson’s “Resident Evil: Retribution,” infected theaters around the world. Based on box office scores from last weekend, it would seem most theaters were quickly quarantined to prevent this movie from making contact with anyone. Unfortunately for me, I slipped a 20 to a guy in a hazmat suit and snuck under the barrier of caution tape to get a chance to see it. In hindsight, I should have taken this week off.
The only redeeming feature of this movie was that it wasn’t “The Words.” And that’s coming from a guy who lists “zombie movie enthusiast” on his applications. Hell, I even listed it as an extracurricular for college applications (don’t ask how I got into MU). I guess I could comment on how “Resident Evil: Retribution” helps advance the zombie movie genre, or how it has great action sequences, but I won’t, just in case my pants suddenly catch fire in The Shack. You know, because I’d be maliciously lying to you.
To be honest, you might actually contract a disease while seeing this movie. It’s called “chronic ‘what?’ face.” Symptoms may include: hands randomly flailing toward the screen, tilting of the head in attempts to comprehend what’s happening, squinting eyes in disbelief and having a constant look of confusion. This all really stems from one important question Anderson had to answer when directing the film: Is it better to have a solid, linear plot or a series of slow-motion sequences with random expositional dialogue that just kind of glosses over what’s supposed to be happening? He chose the second one. If this was a Milgram Obedience Experiment, he would have received a shock right about then.
The entire movie takes place during a period of two hours, which feels like several hours to the viewer and seems like 30 minutes to the characters, because at least half of their time is spent moving in slow motion, which apparently doesn’t affect the speed at which time is moving. Not that I’m an astrophysicist, but their concept of time just doesn’t add up. There’s maybe 45 minutes of movie if the slow-motion scenes were in normal motion. And that’s not counting the time when bullets, rockets and whatever else are being shot at them (by zombies, because they have guns now, apparently) are moving in slow motion, and the characters simply aren’t. I’m also not a ballistics expert, but I don’t think you have enough time to shoot out the floor from under you between the time a rocket is fired at you and when it reaches you. Major “’what?’ face” moment.
And I’m not just bashing it for not having a plot, or for not following the generally accepted laws of physics. I really enjoyed “The Expendables” series, which falls loosely into the same genre of “raw action” movie. But if you spend more time wondering how the hell an event just happened than thinking about how awesome that event was, something is wrong. The “Resident Evil” series continues to prove it has no idea how to make a successful, action-based movie. Somewhere, Bruce Willis is walking barefoot through glass and crying.
Even the horror elements were the same “sudden zombie appears with loud noise!” sequence over and over again. The more “badass” zombies never really seem like a threat to Alice (Milla Jovovich), and the entire existence of Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) just sucks.
“Resident Evil: Retribution” gets 1 1/2 shots to the head out of five, simply because I refuse to give it a score worse than “The Words.” Save your money for “Looper,” “Dredd 3D” or “End of Watch,” all coming out soon. Hell, if you want to see a good horror movie, go rent “Cabin in the Woods” and thoroughly enjoy 95 minutes of your life instead of spending them wondering why “Resident Evil” is still a movie franchise, and why it (spoiler alert?) will probably have another sequel.