Resident Evil: Retribution
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez
117 mins; Class 16; KRS
In Resident Evil: Retribution, the fifth instalment of the popular franchise, The Umbrella Corporation’s deadly T-virus continues to ravage the Earth, transforming the global population into legions of increasingly lethal Undead.
The human race’s last and only hope, Alice (Milla Jovovich), awakens in the heart of Umbrella’s most impenetrable operations facility.
Attempting a death-defying escape from the vast, high-tech complex with the help of a crew of elite commandos, Alice battles her way through the cityscapes of Tokyo, New York City, Moscow and Washington, DC.
Along the way, she encounters a series of mind-blowing revelations that will force her to rethink everything she once believed.
Aided by newfound allies and familiar friends, Alice finds a new reason to fight for the survival of a hostile world on the brink of oblivion. The countdown has begun.
Resident Evil: Retribution also stars Michelle Rodriguez, Kevin Durand, Sienna Guillory, Shawn Roberts, Aryana Engineer, Colin Salmon, Johann Urb, Boris Kodjoe and Li Bingbing.
Director, writer and producer Paul Anderson returns to this terrifying, future world devastated by an unthinkable plague and realised in state-of-the-art 3D, carrying on the story left off in the previous entry, Afterlife.
“We start where the last film left off,” Anderson says in the film’s production notes.
“The end of that film was an epic cliff hanger and we really wanted to make it pay off at the start of this one, then go somewhere completely different. We have taken a huge conceptual leap with this movie. It’s got global scope and the action is bigger than ever.”
Anderson confesses that the series has given him the opportu-nity to indulge his own fan-boy obsessions. “I love making Resident Evil movies,” he says.
“They’re everything I loved about movies growing up – sexy girls, big action, cool sets. They’re fun films to watch and fun films to make. We’ve become more adventurous with each movie, but with this one we’ve done something really spectacular.”
The grim and gritty iconic role of Alice belongs, of course, completely to Jovovich. The character has developed considerably since the first instalment 10 years ago and after playing her for so long, Jovovich says she has come to know her more intimately and care more deeply about her action-hero alter ego.
“Doing this series has been such an adventure,” the actress says. “It’s always amazing to come back to this incredible, fantastical, magical world and to Alice. I know her so well now.”
Although Resident Evil: Retribution continues heroine Alice’s ongoing saga, Anderson is eager to assure newcomers that they won’t feel left out, reiterating that this is a stand-alone movie. “We try and tell a self-contained story each time,” he explains. “Certainly you get more out of it by seeing the others, but even a first-timer will enjoy it.”