Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) - Quantity instead of quality again - 5/10 (04/11/12)

I've been a big fan of the very first "Resident Evil" movie because it had a unique horror film atmosphere, a twisted story and many intriguing characters. When I saw the second film, I was completely disappointed because it only focused on action scenes and had a very depressing and dumb atmosphere all the time. I disliked the film so much that I stopped caring for the sequels. In addition to this, the fascination of the initial concept has just worn out after numerous comics, novels, video games and movies. I feel that only the closed minded die hard fans will continue buying all this stuff and ignoring the lack of quality that has been replaced by an elevated quantity. As it seems, there are still enough of this people around to carry the whole concept on.

I only watched this movie by pure coincidence as I passed a weekend with a friend who is a fan of the series and who asked me to go to watch this flick at his cheap local movie theatre with him. This new flick didn't inspire me at all to watch the flicks I've had missed or to continue following the series. It just underlines what I've already expected. The movie is filled with numerous action scenes, cheap effects and ultimately leads to another sequel while the characters have no development and while there is also a complete absence of any story whatsoever.

There are still a few good points about this film. First of all, the location of a complex Soviet bunker system somewhere underneath the permafrost of North-East Russia is quite promising and definitely has its charm even if the idea had been used before. The decorations are overall quite stylish and a few shots are in fact very well done. Apart of this, I also enjoyed the simulated places the characters cross in this movie such as Tokyo, New York City or Moscow. These scenes are especially intriguing for people who adore to travel and discover the world as I do and at some moments, there are certain deja-vu effects. As a last point, I might say that I liked the addition of Li Bingbing to the movie. I have seen several Chinese flicks with her before she rose to fame and she definitely is a promising actress. It's sad that she is not acting very much in here in fact just like all the other characters that have no development. She's just there all of a sudden, incarnates a tough woman and shows us her long beautiful legs. That's definitely nice to watch but she has clearly more than just this to offer and the team wasted a lot of promising potential.

In the end, this movie seems to be another continuous step down for the Resident Evil universe. There will be more movies but I hope it will stop anytime soon. While the makers of the comparable Underworld saga were able to pull of a quite decent new flick this year, the team behind Resident Evil fails while it tries. Let's hope for an explosive final chapter before the whole thing will finally be brought to an end. I can only recommend this movie to the die hard fans, anyone else should skip this, watch the first and best feature again and discover more movies with Li Bingbing.