Resident Evil: Retribution

I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve concluded that in his “Resident Evil” films, director Paul W. S. Anderson has successfully recreated the experience not of playing a “Resident Evil” video game, but of watching someone else play a “Resident Evil” video game — that someone would be Paul W. S. Anderson. Like when viewing the gaming experience of another, we admire the visuals and the craftsmanship that has gone into the technical details, but never does the action immerse us or excite us as it does the player. Anyone with a sibling or friend with an irritating tendency to hog the controls will know the feeling.

“Retribution," the fifth entry in the apocalyptic sci-fi action-horror franchise, continues this trend in spectacular style. The dialogue, written by Anderson, is entirely functional, witlessly spoon-feeding us nuggets of plot info, or gaming hints; overblown action set-pieces are impressively staged but fail to engage and can merely be observed; scenes of exposition play out like pesky cut-scenes the player refuses to skip, on two notable occasions consisting of a character speaking directly to the camera. I recently watched a walkthrough of the first “Resident Evil” game on YouTube in preparation for “Retribution:” the experience was much the same as the film, as I appreciated the virtuosity of the gameplay but soon began to wish someone would hand me the damn controls.

“Retribution” begins with crystal clarity, dives into confusion and then drowns in it. We open on the events immediately following the ending of the previous installment, “Afterlife,” as super-heroine Alice (Milla Jovovich) falls unconscious into the sea from a cargo ship being attacked by a fleet of Umbrella airships. She awakes in an unexpected setting: a home in the sleepy suburbs, where she has a loving husband and an adorable daughter, who is deaf. Is this real life? Is this just pointless fantasy? In a sequence suspiciously reminiscent of the opening of Zack Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” remake, the idyllic neighbourhood is viciously rampaged by flesh-eating zombie-like creatures, by whom Alice and her brand new family are seemingly killed.

Alice awakes again, in another unexpected setting: a high-tech holding cell, where she is tortured and interrogated by former ally Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), whose mind is controlled by Umbrella through a prominent mechanical scarab latched onto her chest. Alice swiftly escapes the facility and encounters a live video stream hosted by Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), chief villain of “Afterlife.” Wesker remains a curious character: always wearing shades and almost entirely bereft of any discernable personality, he’s like Agent Smith from “The Matrix,” but with even fewer human qualities — at least Smith could become angry and frustrated, while Wesker’s emotional highs and lows consist of a self-satisfied smirk.

It seems Wesker has turned over a new leaf: no longer working for Umbrella, he aims to help Alice escape what is revealed to be a top-secret, gigantic underwater bunker in Russia used for experiments relating to the T-virus outbreak. A strike team breaks into the testing facility to assist in Alice’s escape, none of whom we get to know particularly well — the multicoloured ghosts from Pacman had more distinguishable personalities than these gormless bozos. Meanwhile, homicidal holographic toddler the Red Queen orders the brainwashed Jill to hunt Alice and co down and, to make matters worse, sends Umbrella’s monster clones after her too.

If you can follow any of this, I assume you’re a loyal fan of the franchise. If you cannot, you are not alone; despite having endured all four of the previous installments, I was left scratching my head during “Retribution” almost as many times as I was checking my watch. Franchise newcomers will gain nothing from the film, nor will franchise fans: storywise, nothing of any great significance happens throughout the whole of “Retribution” except the introduction of a new character and a last-minute twist that renders much of “Afterlife" completely redundant.

The new character is Becky (11-year-old Aryana Engineer, “Orphan”), whose presence serves to superficially heighten the stakes of the action. She is the hearing-impaired daughter from the suburbia sequence, which it turns out was a meticulously detailed simulation featuring human and zombie clones. Often clinging to the uzi-firing, grenade-flinging Alice, Becky is bound to call to many viewers’ minds the scruffy-haired, dirty-faced Newt from James Cameron’s “Aliens.” Becky and Alice’s relationship is used as a device for bringing to light the latter’s last few remaining droplets of humanity, portrayed wholly through Alice’s rescuing of the cloned kiddy from the slimy grasp of a snarling monster — surely she would have done the same for any other character?

There is more action here than there was in “Afterlife," fans will be relieved to know. Once again, scenes of trigger-pulling and backflipping are presented in quasi-“Matrix” bullet-time style, as heads explode and limbs are lopped off in masturbatory super-slow-motion — an early battle with an onslaught of the undead is impressively choreographed and gorgeously framed. As I have said in the past, Anderson is a skilled director of action, and he is yet to make a film that is not visually pleasing. The trouble is caring about any of it, a problem attributed to the empty characterisation, stilted dialogue and murky storytelling provided by Anderson’s brainless writing.

I have always enjoyed Jovovich in the “Resident Evil” films: comparable to Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill," she is a capable leading lady and a convincing action heroine. In spite of spending much of her screen-time clad in either a tight-fitting leather outfit or her barely covered birthday suit, she has come out of every series entry with her dignity firmly intact, and it seems she is the sole reason that fans still cling to the franchise. One hopes that in the future Jovovich will lead an action franchise worthier of her talents — until then, it’s chafing leather catsuits and zombie target practice for her.

The best “Resident Evil” movie remains the first one, which at least had the decency to be mildly diverting. As such, “Resident Evil” remains the best film to be based on a video game, which says much about the state of the video game movie. With luck, one day we will see a video game movie that reproduces the excitement and exhilaration of the gaming experience. The ending of “Retribution,” of course, sets up another sequel: perhaps that will be the movie to deliver unto us these long-desired treasures. I wouldn't count on it.

4/10