SLIDER

Film Friday: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

Film Friday: Resident Evil: Retribution

source/imdb

Oh, where to begin? Retribution opens with an admittedly cool slow-mo reverse battle scene to show what happened once Evil Jill Valentine and the Umbrella Commandos reached the Arcadia. (Remember, the "it's a trap" ship from the very end of Afterlife). After this, we get our Alice Intro. which provides a quick recap of the previous four films, but this time steering the wheel toward the Red Queen as being the villain of the whole thing, as opposed to the men who run Umbrella.
(More on this later.) 

And then we get the Milla Jovovich-waking-up-somewhere-strange standard. And wouldn't you know it? This whole thing has been a dream. Alice is actually happily married to Carlos Oliveira, she is the sexiest dressed-down housewife in the history of ever, and together they have a (for some reason deaf) daughter named - lol - Becky - and they all live super happily in the Raccoon City Suburbs. 
Oh, but then zombies attack and, well, shit hits the fan, Becky hides and Alice dies.
Bye!

But wait!

Cut to: And we are treated to ANOTHER Alice-waking-up-somewhere-strange scene and we see she is now in some sort of Umbrella-owned-location. 
Oh, ok. 
She ultimately escapes and runs down the hall to...
Tokyo? 
Yes, she's in Tokyo, and an overhead voice is "initiate Tokyo sequence." Suddenly the opening credits scene from Afterlife is on repeat, and an outbreak happens. I actually love the expression on Alice's face here: she's all Are You Fucking Kidding Me


There is an epic fight scene and it's a damn good thing Alice doesn't have any super powers anymore - no super strength, speed, coordination, any of that. (I'm not sure Paul W.S. Anderson knows what "no superpowers" means.) 

Then time for a bit of exposition! Alice runs into Ada Wong and it turns out she and Wesker (duh! of course he wasn't dead!) were the ones who hacked into the Umbrella mainframe and freed Alice (also providing the zombie fighting S&M outfit).  

Turns out, Alice is ACTUALLY in Sealab Russia, deep beneath the ocean. Seems this is actually the really-real Umbrella HQ (as opposed to the HQ from the beginning of Afterlife). This is where they've been doing simulations on the viral outbreaks. (Yeah, they're still studying it, trying to "control" it. [Make no nevermind that we are now approximately six years into the global zombie apocalypse and there are barely any humans left, making the world of The Walking Dead look downright overpopulated. But, I guess they do have to have something to occupy the time.]

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Wesker is like "Yeah, I don't work for Umbrella anymore; things have gotten a little out of hand. I want to help you, and let's be honest - you need me if you ever want to see the surface again.
So Ada and Alice team up to make their way through the various simulation environments.

Meanwhile... Wesker has also recruited Luther (who is still magically alive from the previous film), as well as Leon Kennedy and Barry Burton to break in and rendezvous with Alice & Ada to assist them on their way out. 

Alice and Ada make their way through the New York City environment, which is designed as a testing field for The Executioner. (This time there's two!) 
They quickly dispatch those and make their way into the Suburban test environment where they come upon a dead Alice. 
What?
Yup. That whole "dream/not a dream" sequence where Alice is a happy suburban wife and mother? Well, I'll let Ada explain: 




Other "basic models" include: Carlos, Rain, and the Captain Guy from the first movie so you can see them playing both good guy and bad guy roles. 

There's more gun fights and in "Moscow," we get to watch the men battling a horde of Las Plagas Undead, which are basically the 28 Days Later version of undead. Stronger, smarter, faster, able to use tools, etc.

Say what you will, but at least he enjoys his job.


There is more conflict, more monsters, a giant licker. Alice and the boys team up and head toward the exit. Some of our remaining characters die in a gunfight, there is a mini boss battle with the giant licker, and eventually they make it to the surface. 
Yay!
All is well. Sigh. The End.

Nope.
Evil Jill Valentine and Evil Rain have caught up to our heroes and they have the final boss battle fight with Jill and Alice fighting and Evil Rain fighting Luther and Leon. 
Eventually, after much fighting, Alice is like "OMG, Jill is being controlled by Umbrella with one of those scarab things on her chest and how the HELL have I not seen this before since it's right out there in the open more obvious than her face?" She pulls off the scarab bug thing and saves Jill, there is another battle between her and Evil Rain. 
Evil Rain lands a punch directly on her breastplate that cracks it and her ribs, the same punch having killed Luther just a moment earlier. But Alice (who is significantly smaller than Luther and still (ostensibly) has no super powers,) manages to survive. Oi. 

Y U No Meme | Y YOU NO USE LOGIC | image tagged in memes,y u no | made w/ Imgflip meme maker


Evil Rain is ultimately destroyed, Jill Valentine makes a full recovery in a matter of minutes and our remaining heroes (and Becky), are helicoptered to their next destination - The White House.
Wesker tells Alice that humanity is making its last stand against The Red Queen, who is now determined to wipe out all humanity, not save humanity from the T-Virus as she was trying to do in the first film. 
Um, ok. Sure. At this point....whatever. 
So Super-Wesker injects the virus back into Alice and she becomes Super-Alice again.
And our movie pans out with Alice, Jill, Ada, Leon, and Wesker standing on the top of The White House, looking out at everything and the whole place is under full siege by mega lickers, plagas undead, flying zombie monster creatures, and whatever else. Wesker is all "this is humanity's last stand, the beginning of the end." 
And they are looking out on this and that's where the movie ends.

It's not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination. However, the fight scenes are better, and it's more fun and more evenly paced than Afterlife. All in all, a ridiculous, crappy, fun-if-you-enjoy-zombie-shit kinda movie. Also, Wesker's speech, I swear is getting more enunciated and dramatic with each film. 

Ties to the Game: Ada Wong, Barry Burton, and Leon Kennedy. Also Evil Jill Valentine. 
Unfortunately, movie Leon is nothing compared to game & animated movie Leon. Such a waste of a potentially badass role.

C-

Heads Up: Violence, monsters, limited gore, bizarro land logic and continuity.



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