Umbrella Corporation + Inception = FAIL. Resident Evil: Retribution Review

It looks epic? Don't get your hopes up.

Being a fan of the Resident Evil movie franchise, I felt like I had to see the recent installment Retribution as soon as it hit the big screen. So, I got a group together, grabbed some cheap over-buttered popcorn and settled in to enjoy some amazing action. The action was indeed amazing, but I can't say that I enjoyed any of it.

Let's be clear: You should never go into a live action Resident Evil film with high expectations. The big draw is the gratuitous violence and the numerous references to the game series that movies are "based" on. This isn't brilliant cinema; this is mindless fun.

But with Retribution, it seemed like the series wanted to pretend it's brilliant and it failed miserably. It's as if someone on the production team saw Inception and screamed "I want our next film to be like that!" without a clue how to do it effectively. Their closest guess was to take Umbrella's clone fixation up to eleven in an attempt to thicken the storyline. All of a sudden, dead characters from the previous installments are back to their old tricks and Alice's adventures seem like a infected dream within a housewife dream within another stupid plot twist dream. The first quarter of the film feels like about 4 or 5 different films, none of which are even remotely worth watching.

And Leon. Oh my goodness, Leon. I don't recommend this film because of that character alone. The fanbase has been wishing, hoping and praying for Leon S. Kennedy's appearance in the series since this whole thing started. I was so excited but as soon as he hit the screen, all of my hopes were blown to bits with a rocket launcher. Not only did he look like an dirty scruffy-chinned jerk, he sounded like one and acted like one. Every time the actor muttered his lines with the emotional depth of a cardboard cutout of Edward Cullen, I found myself saying telling him to shut up. Every single time. Leon's terrible adaptation is made even worse when one of the series-exclusive characters dies pretty much only so Leon can live and appear in the next film. Oh joy!

Did you think that the series was over? Yeah, right. We still have one more to go. That's if the box office numbers add up and I can't see why they wouldn't. Have you seen the opening figure? $21 million in ticket sales. The question isn't whether or not there will be another film, it's whether or not anyone will actually care.

I made this brief review as spoiler-free as possible, just in case you actually want to torture yourself and see it, but there are easier and more enjoyable ways to waste your money. Like throwing it into oncoming traffic for example. Even if you are dying to know what happened after the last cliff-hanger, don't bother. Almost nothing is resolved and what was could have been sorted out in a just few moments. In the end, you're just left with another absolutely outrageous cliff-hanger that is an obvious attempt to get another ticket purchase out of you later.

At least the costumes were good. My fashionable side was pleased, but the view of the clothing was not worth the price of admission.

It's time and money you can never get back.

Are you a fan of the Resident Evil film series? Do you want to see Retribution? If you already have, what did you think?