By Joshua Knopp/special assignments editor
My name is Alice, and you dumb [expletive]-s spent money to see me fight zombies. Again.
I’m honestly not sure what it’s going to take to get you people to stop supporting bad filmmaking just to gawk at me. Think about the plotlines! In my world, humanity has been functionally extinct since Resident Evil: Extinction, which came out in 2007! In my most recent film, Resident Evil: Retribution, about six humans appear onscreen through the entire movie, myself not included! Why does anyone care?
Retribution starts when two of those humans, Ada Wong (Li Bingbing) and Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), who is apparently a good guy now, attempt to rescue me from an underwater Umbrella facility off the north coast of Russia. Our escape spans the entirety of the film. The reason my escape is so important is not really mentioned.
I, as a character in this film, do not understand what happens in it. First, I’m the subject of what has to be the lamest torture scene ever, then I’m in Tokyo, then Ada is pointing a gun at me and then she’s my friend, zombies materialize out of nowhere, it’s two hours of cacophony!
The plot seems designed to string me along from one dull action sequence to another, which is OK, I guess, for what is supposed to be an action movie, but when the action sequences are lame, it simply allows the movie to fall apart. My actress, Milla Jovovich, after five movies still makes me seem like a nervous virgin in action sequences. The majority of the film is shots of guns (which never, EVER run out of ammunition) firing. It’s so boring!
Photo courtesy Screen Gems
The movie makes less sense when put in context with the rest of the series. There aren’t any more humans on earth, but Umbrella has a seemingly infinite supply stationed at their secret bases all over the world. Umbrella makes extensive use of cloning technology to test their lethal viruses to sell for profit, instead of simply saving billions of lives and making more profit for a longer period of time. Wesker, the head of Umbrella, announces he left Umbrella because he disagreed with his bosses. Almost every shred of expository dialogue is nonsensical.
I am so tired of these movies. I have killed hundreds of zombies, had psychic powers given and taken away and seen all manner of friends and love interests die around me. Please, stop supporting this series. Don’t go to the next one (oh, there will be a next one). Do whatever you can to make this not happen anymore.
Please. This is hell. Let me go.
