Resident Evil: Retribution. Paul W.S. Anderson. 2012. ⚁

Huh. This one starts with a recap of all the previous movies. I don’t think any of the other ones have?

Yeah, it’s getting a bit repetetive? In every movie, they defeat the evil corporation, but then in the next movie, it turns out that no, the evil corporation has more resources. I mean, I get it, but it does show a certain lack of … planning?

Then again, it’s a video game movie series, so whatevs.

Stonks!

Anyway, it’s like Anderson heard what I was kvetching about — so far, the movie has been all recreations of scenes from previous movies, so it’s really leaning into the “repetition” thing, only in a meta way.

Jovovich seems to be trapped in a simulation or something? It’s fun.

But then… a bunch of exposition… and…

… it seems like the world isn’t as affected by the virus as the previous movies led us to believe?

*sigh*

It’s totally lost all tension in just a couple minutes. That’s an amazing feat.

I like do action movies that are all action — not having to think about a plot can be liberating. But this one is… kinda plotless? But still has a lot of boring scenes (“character development”) in between the fun action scenes? The pacing is all wonky, and the feeling of tedium carries over from these scenes into the action pieces.

It’s just badly put together, and I expected more from Anderson. This is definitely the worst one in the series. Well, so far.

Such athletic!

I’m not sure why the Wesker (?) character is CGI now?

Perhaps we’ll find out in the next episode?

I mean, movie. But I’m not really expecting much here — half of the movies have ended this way, just for them to er forget in the next movie.

Paul W. S. is back? Cool. I mean, he’s not … you know, good, but he knows how to make a video game movie.

An army of Milla!

New-form zombies! More like Parasyte horrors, I guess?

Hey! It’s that guy from… Legends of Tomorrow.

Anyway, this started off really fun: High energy and snappy scenes. And then it conveniently dialled back the Milla Superness, so that she’s now more conveniently fabulous. Which is cheaper, special effects wise, I guess.

But now there’s all this… character development… Who wants that!?

Weapons!

OK, it’s not a perfect popcorn movie — but it’s pretty good? I mean, I was entertained… most of the time.

Resident Evil: Afterlife. Paul W.S. Anderson. 2010. ⚃

I’m going… “did I rip the previous movie two times or something?” Because the first scenes seem identical to the Apocalypse movie?

But no! Fake out!

I’m impressed.

So this is by Russell Mulcahy, who made the Highlander movies back in the 80s (after doing a whole bunch of music videos, most prominently for The Tubes). But look at his career after this movie:

Why did his career crater after this movie? This one was pretty well received (as these movies go) and made quite a lot of money?

Well OK

The The Birds homage was fun.

There’s like intermittent brilliance here (well, for a movie like this): It’s expanding on the milieu previously established, and making it all more interesting and sinister.

And some really fun action scenes. And that evil corporation guy? He’s so evil!!!

So all that is fine, but then there’s things that … are just annoying? For instance, that guy who’s infected but doesn’t tell anybody? Who does that? I mean, he knows that he’s turning into a zombie, and nobody wants that to happen? So that’s just annoying.

The CGI is pretty nice for a 2007 movie.

I love the ending, but I’m guessing they’re going to pretend that that never happened in the next movie? Because following up on that would be… expensive to shoot.

Resident Evil: Exctinction. Russell Mulcahy. 2007. ⚃