Resident Evil: Retribution – film review
Each new film in the franchise is worse than the previous, yet it manages to make more money.
LOS ANGELES:
Rise of globalisation has truly made the world into a global village. What if this came at the cost of the world as we know it?
Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes up to find that she is now a prisoner of the Umbrella Corporation that she has been fighting against and had sworn to destroy. However, she manages to escape only to realise that she is not really in the outside world, but a world of live simulations.
Even as a team sent to rescue her makes its way towards her, Alice is confounded with the gravity of the strength of Umbrella Corporation and that of the computer ‘Red Queen’.
Just like you would expect from any franchise that has run for this long, this fifth installment of the series has got almost everything thrown in. Thus you have Alice as a young, innocent mother being attacked by zombies; you have Alice the confused, half-naked prisoner; and Alice the street fighter who punches and kicks zombies to pulp among others.
While it’s well-conceived action sequences work, overall the film is a huge disappointment becoming nothing but a collection of mutated zombies, gunfights and few hand-to-hand combat, along with the innumerable plot inconsistencies, corny dialogues and some extremely lazy and insipid writing.
It is pitiable to see each newer film in the franchise getting progressively worse than the previous ones. What is even worse is that each new version ends up making more money than the previous version, making it the most successful film franchise based on a video game.
If you thought this was the death knell of the series, you’re wrong. Just like the zombies in the film who are shot but refuse to die, the series will rise again in the form of yet another film, in less than two years.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 2nd, 2012.
Rise of globalisation has truly made the world into a global village. What if this came at the cost of the world as we know it?
Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes up to find that she is now a prisoner of the Umbrella Corporation that she has been fighting against and had sworn to destroy. However, she manages to escape only to realise that she is not really in the outside world, but a world of live simulations.
Even as a team sent to rescue her makes its way towards her, Alice is confounded with the gravity of the strength of Umbrella Corporation and that of the computer ‘Red Queen’.
Just like you would expect from any franchise that has run for this long, this fifth installment of the series has got almost everything thrown in. Thus you have Alice as a young, innocent mother being attacked by zombies; you have Alice the confused, half-naked prisoner; and Alice the street fighter who punches and kicks zombies to pulp among others.
While it’s well-conceived action sequences work, overall the film is a huge disappointment becoming nothing but a collection of mutated zombies, gunfights and few hand-to-hand combat, along with the innumerable plot inconsistencies, corny dialogues and some extremely lazy and insipid writing.
It is pitiable to see each newer film in the franchise getting progressively worse than the previous ones. What is even worse is that each new version ends up making more money than the previous version, making it the most successful film franchise based on a video game.
If you thought this was the death knell of the series, you’re wrong. Just like the zombies in the film who are shot but refuse to die, the series will rise again in the form of yet another film, in less than two years.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 2nd, 2012.