Alice has been captured by the Umbrella corporation and taken to their underwater station. She must now find a way to get out.
Blaine: Making a “Resident Evil” movie is very exiting for Paul W.S. Anderson. Paul had started the “Resident Evil” franchise back in 2002 and he had done so many of the “Resident Evil” movies as a writer and director. “Retribution” was the third “Resident Evil” movie he had directed and for this one he wanted to add more to it. He wanted more action, horror and zombies. “Retribution” was going to be something bigger and better than any other “Resident Evil”. The camera crew Paul got to work with had a lot of experience in making a 3D movie. Paul wanted everything to look real in 3D and for stuff to come out at you as you were watching it.
Paul loves strong women and he has been writing parts for women through this franchise that allows them to be bad ass. Alice comes a long way since the first “Resident Evil” movie. In the first movie she was confused because she lost her memory and she was trying to figure out who she is. Alice had noticed that she is really good with a gun and has really good fighting skills. As the franchise went on, she became this strong woman and is all for killing bad guys, zombies and mutant creatures. Milla Jovovich has played Alice since the beginning and she has played the character so many times that she has become her. Milla knows what Alice is feeling, but new surprises come her way that she’d never expected. In “Retribution”, she is learning how to become a mother. Alice finds a little girl, Becky, who is the daughter of a clone version of Alice. Alice may not know Becky, but she looks after her like she is her own. Alice has been involved with the zombie apocalypse for so long that she doesn’t know what a normal life is like. It was interesting for Milla to show a different side to Alice that the audience has never seen before. Alice has a different outfit for each “Resident Evil” movie and for “Retribution” she wears a skin tight black suit. Paul and the costume designer thought it would be a challenge for Milla to wear the skin tight suit because it was latex with big heels and big guns. But Milla felt comfortable in it. What was really challenging for Milla was wearing average clothes while running around and screaming. At the beginning you see the Alice clone living a peaceful life with her family, until the zombies show up and wreak the entire neighborhood. This Alice is not a fighter. Milla Jovovich has had a lot of experience in stunt training through her career in movies like “Fifth Element”, “Joan of Arc”, “Ultraviolet” and the “Resident Evil” franchise, but there’s always a new fighting move for her to learn. The stunt coordinator thought about Alice fighting zombies with a chain after seeing it in a Thai movie. Paul wasn’t sure where the chain would come from until he saw someone’s mountain bike chained up and there was a big, thick lock holding that chain together. The thing Milla Jovovich is afraid of when shooting a fight scene is hitting someone for real because she doesn’t want to hurt them. These days filmmakers want the fighting to look more real because the scene is going to be in 3D.
There’s this underwater station Umbrella put together and inside are these test environments that represent real locations, Tokyo, Times Square and Red Square. They are full of clones of people who think they are in the real world. One of those clones is infected with the virus that turns people into zombies. The clone that is infected has to spread the virus so Umbrella can study and see what the effects are capable of. The idea for the underwater station was based on these small desert towns the American military have built in New Mexico because America and Europe have been at war with Iraq for a while. They went to these real locations like Suburbia to shoot the neighborhood. They sent people to take pictures of Moscow so they could rebuild or digitally add as a background for these sets they built with green screen in Toronto. The reason they had to rebuild it in Toronto was because there’s a machine gun battle in front of one of the Moscow stores which causes a lot of damage and Paul wasn’t sure if they would allow that at the real location.
While “Retribution” was in pre-production, people would ask if it was going to be about time travel because the characters who have died in the previous movies were coming back. In “Extinction”, there were clones of Alice used as test subjects until she freed them all at the end and built up an army of herself. Paul thought about there being clones as test subjects in “Retribution” of Alice and other characters as well. “Retribution” became a reunion.
Michelle Rodriguez was in the first “Resident Evil” movie with Milla Jovovich. Then her character got bit, became a zombie and got shot in the head. Paul loved working with Michelle on “Resident Evil” and after it ended he had been trying to figure out how to bring her back into the franchise. In “Retribution”, Michelle plays two clone versions of her character, but they have different personalities from each other. One is a bad guy who is working for Umbrella and she’s tough. The other one is sweet and hardly knows how to use a gun until Alice teaches her. Michelle was really into playing two clone versions of her character because she said it’s fun for an actress like her to explore new things. It sucks that the good version of Michelle’s character had to get killed because I like her and that just leaves the bad clone. Close to the end, the bad clone of the character injects herself with something to make herself indestructible from bullet shots or anything that could physically harm her. The only thing that can stop her is 50 zombies bitting her skin off all at once because it would be difficult to heal while being bitten several times, especially when you’re drowning.
Oded Fehr’s character, Carlos, was a love interest to Alice in “Extinction” and he has clone versions of himself as well. One is a bad guy and the other represents the husband Alice could have had if everything was normal again before the world went to hell. Oded Fehr bumped into Paul and told him he wanted to come back to “Resident Evil” and Paul was already planning to bring back Carlos before he asked. Luther West, Alice had met while she was in Los Angeles in the last movie, “Afterlife”. Thousands of zombies were surrounding the streets of Los Angeles and they were stranded in a tall building. So to get out they had to go underground. Luther was attacked by zombies and it looked like he was dead, until he came out of the sewers at the end. Luther was found by the good guys and is now apart of a fighting force trying to stop Umbrella. Luther becomes another love interest for Alice in “Retribution” because you see them become more closer. Luther doesn’t find it strange that someone as bad ass as Alice could have a daughter, even though that’s the daughter of a clone version of her. Michelle Rodriguez’s bad version kills Luther by smacking his chest so hard that it causes his heart to stop.
Jill Valentine was in “Apocalypse" and fans didn’t get to see her in the third movie and that left the question to what happened to her. There is a mid-credit scene to “Afterlife” showing Jill Valentine making a cameo appearance because Paul wanted to reintroduce the character and give her a new look. She had dark hair and dressed like Lara Croft in “Apocalypse", but now she has blonde hair, wears a skin tight purple suit and is being controlled by Umbrella and the Red Queen as their mind slave. Fans have been wanting to see Alice and Jill Valentine go against each other and Paul wrote a sequence where they fight in the snow.
“Retribution” introduces Ada Wong, another character from the video game. Li Bingbing was very excited when she was offered the role because Ada Wong is smart, cool and mysterious. She can fight while wearing a dress and high heels and her looks in “Retribution” represent how she looks in the game. Why she wears a dress I don’t know, but she is bad ass. The most important thing for Ada Wong is her job and her mission to help Alice escape.
Albert Wesker was the villain in the last movie, “Afterlife”, and at the end he tried to escape in one of the flying vehicles, but it exploded because alice put a bomb inside and you assumed he was dead. Albert Wesker is the head of the Umbrella Corporation and he has infected himself with something known as the T-Virus, giving him these abilities. Albert was either cloned or his abilities saved his life because he’s in “Retribution”. Paul felt that Shawn Roberts, the actor who plays Albert, did a lot of action in the last movie, but didn’t have much dialog. Albert is in the Oval Office behind the desk. He’s supposed to be the villain, but in “Retribution” he feels like the good guy because he’s helping Alice.
Paul added a lot of creatures that have been in the previous films. The Majini from “Afterlife”. They have these tentacular mandibles that come out of their mouths. The Lickers are in it too, but they are more evolved and have gotten bigger. They’re the size of an elephant. Paul thought it would be exciting if there was a car chase scene with the Licker going though Red Square. The Axeman is a mutant zombie the size of a basketball player and looks like an executioner. At the end of “Retribution” you see a lot of zombies and a few Lickers around Washington DC and the audience is introduced to a new creature that flies.
My rating on “Resident Evil: Retribution” is five out of five stars.
