Resident Evil: Retribution

After so many installments, it is getting harder and harder to overlook some basic problems with the Resident Evil franchise.  With the fifth (I know!) volume, Resident Evil: Retribution, I have to point out upfront what has ruined my suspension of disbelief: I have a hard time buying into an international evil organization, hell-bent on ruining the world that manages to keep finding glove-tight leather outfits for Milla Jovovich to kick ass in.  We're four movies into a global zombie apocalypse, and they still have someone working a bondage/tailoring shop?  Sure, it's obviously a solid investment when the zombie apocalypse comes a-knocking --- What would Milla wear, otherwise?  Capris? --- but you think somebody would at least brag about having the foresight for this eventuality.  If this was my movie, that would be the only thing discussed in the trailer.

***DISCLAIMER: The plot of Resident Evil: Retribution is pretty damn ridiculous, so forgive me if I simplify or gloss over some of the finer points in this plot summary***

When last we left Alice (Milla Jovovich), she was on an aircraft carrier, about to take on the forces of the evil Umbrella Corporation.

This picture perfectly encapsulates all Resident Evil plots

The next thing you know, Alice has woken up to an idyllic suburban life, where she has a husband and a child.  But then zombies happen.  Again.  The next thing you know (again), Alice wakes up in an unnecessarily bright and clean room, wearing only a small towel.  Why a towel?  Did she slip and hit her head coming out of the shower?  Are her hot pants at the cleaner?  Is this just a subtle clue that the zombie virus began with mildew accumulating in Milla's towel because she can't be bothered to hang it up like a grown damn woman, and I sure as shit don't need to keep picking up after her --- if she really respected me, she wouldn't be so thoughtless in the shared space of our bathroom, right?

Stained-glass floors.  Classy touch, evil corporation.

Actually, that stupid idea is only slightly less reasonable than the shoulder shrug reasoning of the actual script.  Although having the entire Resident Evil franchise be the concussed dream of Alice, after a bathroom-related head injury, would be pretty hilarious.  Anyway, the villain of the last four films, Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), has taken the time to bleach his hair.  Almost as importantly, Wesker tells Alice that he is no longer part of the evil Umbrella Corporation.  Now he wants to help humanity, which makes as much sense as anything else in this series.  It seems that The Umbrella Corporation has been taken over by a virtual intelligence called the Red Queen.

Note: the worst CGI in this series is for a computer-generated character

Umbrella and the Queen have captured Alice and cloned the crap out of her and a lot of other people (many we have seen in previous Resident Evil movies), running simulation after simulation, and using Alice's unique physiology (I think) to perfect the zombie disease.  Wesker wants to help Alice escape the of-course-it's-underwater Umbrella station she is in, so he sends in some help, in the form of Ada Wong (Bingbing Li).  All the two of them have to do is fight their way across three city-sized zombie experiments and meet up with Wesker's extraction team. 

That sounds easy enough

There are a lot of returning characters to Resident Evil: Retribution, but the acting is at the level the series is known for (hint: the bar is not set high).  This is actually Milla Jovovich's best work in the series to date, as she not only kicks ass and looks sexy, but she also manages to deliver a few one-liners.  It's not impressive work by most standards, but for an actress as wooden as Jovovich, it is worth noting.  How about the rest of the cast?  Well, there are some newcomers.  Bingbing Li is pretty and wore some fantastically inappropriate clothes for fighting zombies, but it all of her dialogue was dubbed over in post-production.  And it looked like it, too.

An evening dress is a solid choice for outrunning zombies, right?

Aryana Engineer was adequate as the completely useless little girl that Alice took with her, but she was less of a character and more of a plot device.  Johann Urb played Leon Kennedy, the main character from the fifth RE video game, and he has a little less characterization than your average video game character; in case his haircut bothers you, that was also inspired by the game.  Kevin Durand also plays a character from the games.  While his role in the movie seemed somewhat minor, I thought Durand did a solid job as an unnecessarily macho character.  The returning cast sees Sienna Guillory, Shawn Roberts, and Boris Kodjoe survive the last film, with Michelle Rodriguez, Oded Fehr, and Colin Salmon having their now-dead characters cloned, with Fehr and Rodriguez doing double duty as both "good" and "bad" clones. On the whole, there is less "acting" in this movie than there is "shouting until something explodes," but that is to be expected.  Nobody (except for Li) was embarrassingly bad, but this is a movie about a supermodel who fights zombies in a leather bodysuit --- good acting was never in the cards.

Thankfully, "posing with weapons" was

Luckily, writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson was well aware of that fact, and made a movie that played to both the franchise's and his own strengths: CGI action sequences.  If you're looking for ninety minutes of mindless action sequences, Resident Evil: Retribution may be the film for you.  Anderson has a knack for making Jovovich look like a formidable action hero, and his production of action scenes is some of the smoothest in the business right now.  That doesn't make up for his shortcomings as a screenwriter, but at least he's not spending a lot of time trying and failing to have these characters force emotions or a lot of hammy jokes.  

Although a "women driving" line would have been good here

After watching this film with Danny O'D, we both reached the same conclusion with regards to Paul W.S. Anderson's talents: it's not that he's a good director or anything, but it is nice that he keeps making action movies for Milla Jovovich to be a sex object in.  She's not exactly old here, but how many other 37-year old actresses have this kind of opportunity to kill fake things and be ogled by audiences in genuinely profitable films?  The answer, obviously, is "not enough."  Hollywood has failed to generate a new generation of dumb action heroes as Stallone and Schwarzenegger have aged into irrelevance, so why not make some scripts for aging (by Hollywood standards) beauties that may or may not have acting talent?  Just retool an old Chuck Norris movie for someone like Jennifer Love-Hewitt or Jenny McCarthy and have them fight Communist zombie ninjas.  How hard is that?  It's obviously working for Kate Beckinsale.

Note: I would also watch Michelle Rodriguez fighting Nazi alien terrorists

Okay, so Resident Evil: Retribution isn't a legitimately good movie.  How is it in terms of action movies, or at least the other Resident Evil movies?  The action certainly looks good in Retribution, and there is an awful lot of it.  But there is also a lot of stupid plotting, despite the fact that this movie feels like an hour and a half of mindless action.  Did this story need to keep tabs on Leon Kennedy and the other gun-toting "characters" that were meeting up with Alice?  Absolutely not.  Did we need Alice to care for a child?  Lord, no.  How about changing the villain in the series out of absolutely nowhere?  That was only slightly less stupid than filling the cast with recognizable actors who were "only" clones, and therefore perfectly expendable.
  Look, the less attention you pay to this horrible excuse for a story (example: whatever happened to Ali Larter and Wentworth Miller after the last movie, anyway?), the better off you are.

More of this, less of deaf children

However, even glossing over the plot doesn't make this film a must-see.  The best action movies have cool heroes doing cool things that kill bad guys.  The action scenes in Retribution are very smooth and generally look pretty good and lots of bad guys die, but these scenes don't always make a lot of sense.  That wouldn't be a huge knock on the movie, but Alice is a dull heroine.  When you add zero charisma to nonsensical action and a terrible plot, you get a sub-par movie.  Still, this is a movie about a zombie-killing woman in a vacuum-sealed catsuit; it may not be great, but it at least plays up what it does well. 

Within the Resident Evil series, I would say that Retribution is slightly worse than Resurrection, but still a little better than Apocalypse.  Given the $220 million Resident Evil: Retribution has made, it looks like we'll be seeing a sixth Milla RE movie soon.  With any luck, it will be a little less idiotic and a little more sensational.  And then, most likely, we'll see a reboot two years later.

Alien vs. Predator (Extended Cut)

I like it when I can turn my brain off and enjoy a stupid action movie for exactly what it is: big, dumb and fun.  It's even better when the title tells me exactly what to expect --- Alien vs. Predator?  Awesome, I don't even have to wonder what the movie is going to be about.  The only thing better than a "vs." title would be a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie called I Slow-Motion Roundhouse Kick Many Men in the Face.  I happen to be a pretty big fan of both the Predator and Alien franchises, so this movie could (theoretically) be better than a dumb action movie; Alien is a smart thriller, while Predator and Aliens are awesome action movies.  Really, as long as AVP didn't take its cues from Alien: Resurrection, it could stand a chance of actually being good.

...And then the movie begins, and all hope is lost.  Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan) is ice picking her way up a remote frozen mountain when she gets a phone call.  My first reaction was, "You get reception there?  Who is your carrier?"  The caller is Maxwell Stafford (Colin Salmon), and he has a job offer for Alexa.  As she struggles to get to the top of the mountain, Alexa politely refuses the job because she is days away from civilization.  Just then, she reaches the top and Stafford is already there, with a helicopter.  Right there is the first inkling of how dumb this movie will be.  What, you can't wait two minutes for her to get to the top of the ice mountain, you have to call her immediately, Mr. Stafford?  And maybe you shouldn't startle someone on the edge of a cliff covered in ice.  Just a thought.  Jerk.  And wouldn't she have been somewhat aware of a helicopter landing near her?  It's not like she was going to be distracted by the noises of traffic surrounding her.  Whatever.

Stafford works for billionaire Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen), who has assembled a diverse team of experts to investigate something unusual.  Alexa is the survival guide, Sebastian (Raoul Bova) is an expert in ancient Egyptians and hieroglyphs, and Graeme (Ewen Bremner) is a mineralogist.  There are some drilling experts and some mercenary soldiers (Tommy Flanagan, Agathe de La Boulaye, and a few others) in the group, as well.  The day before, a heat signature was picked up by one of Weyland's satellites that covers Antarctica; from the satellite images, he has determined that the heat comes from a vast pyramid structure several hundred yards beneath the ice on an island just off the coast of the frozen continent.  Obviously, rich guy wants more toys, so the expedition intends to find the heated object and claim it for himself, humanity, and his multinational communications company.  And, thanks to the expert knowledge of Sebastian, we now know that this pyramid has aspects of all known pyramids --- Egyptian, Peruvian, etc. --- so this could be the world's very first pyramid.  Because an educated archaeologist is willing to make ridiculous claims like that after glancing at some extrapolated images.  Are we sure this isn't based on a true story?

What is taking so long for us to get to the title subject matter?  Aliens?  Predators?  Either would be awesome right about now.  Well, the stupid humans enter the pyramid, only to find that it is all a trap; once they have entered, the pyramid changes the shape of its interior rooms every ten minutes (or whenever it is convenient for the plot).  Why?  Well, we can discuss that later.  The point is that some humans get stuck in a room where they are incapacitated long enough to be impregnated with baby Aliens in their chest.  Then Predators show up and kill all the Aliens as part of their training to become bigger, better Predators.  So, there you have it: Aliens vs. Predators.  And both against humans.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this film is the fact that the basic plot mechanism behind it is based on a scientific theory.  Granted, it's not a widely accepted theory, but it's not something that writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson just pulled out of his butt, either.  The idea is loosely based on Erich von Däniken's book, Chariots of the Gods?, which postulates that ancient pyramids and religions were brought to the Earth by extraterrestrials, who were seen as gods by the primitive humans.  Personally, I find such sloppy pseduo-archaeology offensive to my intelligence, but it's not a bad idea for science fiction.  The movie tweaks it a little bit by making the pyramids a training ground for fledgling Predators as they fought the universe's ultimate prey, Aliens.  It's more complicated that I like in my action movie plots, and it will require a human to learn all this and be in awe, but it's not fundamentally terrible.  Besides, it sets up my favorite line in the whole film; at one point, Sebastian says "This is starting to make sense."  That cracks me up every time, because it must have taken that actor at least a dozen takes to say that with a straight face.

How do you screw up an idea like Aliens being hunted by Predators?  By focusing on the humans.  I'm sorry, Alexa and Sebastian (the film's only vaguely sympathetic characters), but I don't care if you live or die --- as long as your death is awesome, it's all good in my opinion.  "But we need a point of view character that is experiencing these scary monsters for the first time, like the audience."  No, we don't.  There were six other movies with these creatures; I think the movie-going public is pretty well-acquainted with these things.  But that is just a conceptual misstep.  It hurts the movie, yes, but you can still make a decent action flick with this basic story.

But then again, the specifics of the story are ridiculous.  Where to begin...?  If the Predators use Earth as a training ground, why haven't we seen them fighting Aliens on pyramids in the past (let's be generous) 100 years?  The flashback clips show the Predators fighting on some pyramids in what appeared to be Central America, which was heavily populated in pyramid-building times, so it's not like they were relegated to the Antarctic.  And even if they were, why do they need to lure humans there?  Why not kidnap them?  When all you're looking for is a warm body to incubate Alien babies, you don't need to be picky.  Let's just say that the reason humans have not witnessed Predators fighting Aliens in modern times is because they've been doing it under the tundra; why would they even have a pyramid there?  They weren't shy about building pyramids all around the globe.  Why are they bashful now?  And if humans are just walking nurseries for the Aliens, why do the Predators kill some of the humans before they even enter the pyramid?  I don't really care how stupid the core premise of an action movie is, but at least try to be consistent.

Man, analyzing this movie just ticks me off.  While this could have been a genuinely cool movie, it chose to be a dumb action movie.  Okay, I can live with that.  If you're going to gauge this flick by horror movie standards, there are over a dozen kills in this movie, not counting Predators or Aliens.  That's not a bad body count.  The final Predator has some pretty sweet kills, too, so at least one of the bad-ass hunters got a chance to be bad-ass.  And hollowing out an Alien skull to use as a shield?  That was awesome.  And how about the Predator spaceship?  The front of it was shaped like their masks.  I nearly spit all over myself when I first saw that.  It's like Jason Voorhies driving around Crystal Lake in a van with a giant hockey mask on the grill.  Actually, it's better than that --- it's like the Predators are ghetto fabulous winners of "Pimp My Spaceship."

But by focusing on the insignificant humans, who are (by the story's own admission) just cannon fodder, this movie truly fails.  Do you want to see a Rambo movie, told from the point of view of one of the three hundred henchmen Stallone blows the hell out of?  Of course not.  Unless it was a two minute short film, in which case, it could be pretty funny.  The same principle applies here.  I am more than okay with some brainless Alien and Predator kills; this movie has a couple that were pretty good, but the PG-13 rating definitely limits the quality of the its senseless violence.  And by taking the point of view away from the Predators (because, really, I don't think you can tell a story from an Alien POV), the filmmakers guaranteed that this movie would suck.  On the bright side, this movie did fulfill its promise of having Aliens and Predators fight each other.  So, let's review: ridiculous story, acting so inconsequential that I haven't even mentioned it until now, underwhelming action, and the wrong approach to a can't miss idea.  Yep.  That's a bad movie.  Even if it does, technically, live up to its title.