Resident Evil: Retribution

Plot

Alice and the others on the Umbrella Corporation freighter Arcadia, now face an attack by an assaulting fleet of tiltrotor V-22 Ospreys led by Alice's former ally, Jill Valentine, resulting in the killing of many of the survivors in the ship. Alice is captured during the attack while the fates of Chris Redfield, Claire Redfield and K-Mart are left ambiguous.

The story switches to a suburban Alice living with her husband, Todd, and her deaf daughter Becky. Zombies attack, revealing the suburbia was actually Raccoon City during the contamination incident. Alice and Becky manage to run away from the undead, with the help of Rain Ocampo, by letting them ride on her car. As the three escape, they were hit by a garbage truck, knocking Rain unconscious. Alice hides Becky, but is killed by a zombified Todd.

Meanwhile, the real Alice awakens in an underground facility and is interrogated by Jill. During a power failure, Alice escapes her cell and the laser grid, finding herself in a simulation of Shibuya Square, Tokyo. Fighting her way out against zombies, she enters a control room filled with dead Umbrella employees and encounters Ada Wong, one of Albert Wesker's top agents. Wesker appears on a screen, explaining that they no longer serve Umbrella and the power outage was staged by Wesker's hacking into the facility's computer mainframe. Wesker also reveals that the Red Queen, one of Alice's arch-enemies, was reactivated after the Hive incident and now controls Umbrella. He also explains that the facility is underwater, located in Kamchatka, Russia, and that it formerly served as a Soviet naval outpost. The facility was designed by Umbrella for manufacturing clones and creating simulated outbreaks to show the effect of the T-virus. Ada and Alice plan to rendezvous with a rescue crew organized by Wesker, which includes Leon Kennedy, Barry Burton, and Luther West (Alice's former ally, who has survived after the outbreak in Los Angeles). Leon's team plants explosives near the entrance of the facility, which will detonate in two hours to ensure the facility's destruction. The group plans to meet with Alice and Ada in the Raccoon City suburbia area. In a New York City simulation, Alice and Ada defeat two Axemen. Leon and his team enter a Moscow simulation (Red Square in front of the GUM façade), but they are cut off by a heavily armed Las Plagas Undead horde, which has surrounded them.

In the Suburban setting, Alice and Ada encounter Becky, which mistakens Alice to be the clone's mother, and is also attached to her. They also encounter the clones which consists as Alice's deceased allies; the One, "evil" Rain Ocampo and Carlos Olivera, who are sent to capture them. During the shootout which was triggered by Ada, she gives Alice her smart glasses and her grappling hook so that she and Becky can find their way out and become separated. They encounter another clone of "good" Rain in the Moscow simulation (Arbatskaya metro station), and Alice gives her a weapon. She then rescues Leon's surviving crew from the barrage of Las Plagas zombies and a giant Licker. Once united, the group head towards the tunnel and reach the submarine pens in the facility exit but they are ambushed by Jill's team and Becky is captured by the Licker, and "good" Rain is killed, breaking her neck after being thrown by the Licker. Alice rescues Becky, and also kills the Licker using a belt of grenades she found. Barry sacrifices himself in the process, holding the Umbrella operatives off long enough to ensure the others' escape. Using Leon's bombs, they finally manage to destroy the facility, allowing Leon and Luther to escape, with Alice and Becky also survived, having used the ventilation system.

On the surface, their snow-mobile is knocked over by Jill Valentine's Oscar-Class submarine. Jill and "bad" Rain confront the group with Ada, being held as their hostage. Jill and Alice begin fighting each other, while Rain - now also enhanced with the Las Plagas parasite, granting her superhuman strength and healing, fights Leon and Luther. Alice is able to tear the mind-controlling scarab off Jill's chest, returning her to her normal self. Unfortunately, Rain also kills Luther in the process, while Leon is knocked out. Realizing that they can't kill Rain, Alice shoots the ice under her feet and she is dragged down by the swimming zombies from the undersea installation to be devoured, killing her for good. Alice, Ada, Becky, Leon, and Jill travel to Wesker's headquarters, a heavily barricaded and fortified White House, staffed by STARS and the remainders of the U.S. Armed Forces. Alice meets Wesker in the heavily barricaded Oval Office, where he injects her with the T-virus, returning her superhuman abilities; as only Alice successfully bonded with it, she is the ultimate weapon. On the roof, Wesker explains that the Red Queen is trying to wipe out humanity, and all of the remaining uninfected humans are in the base; it is humanity's last stand. A pull-away shows the U.S Military defending the White House alongside the remaining Umbrella Corp. soldiers against enormous hordes of T-virus abominations swarming all over the walls.

Cast

Development

After the release of Resident Evil: Afterlife, director Paul W. S. Anderson was in discussion with Screen Gems of filming a fifth and sixth film back to back. But Anderson later decided to just focus on Resident Evil: Retribution. Anderson returned as writer and director, Glen McPherson serves as director of photography, Kevin Phipps as production designer, and Nick Powell as both a fight choreographer and second-unit director.

Influences

When Ada and Alice encounter each other the first time they recreate a scene from Resident Evil 4 in their brief fight. An element from Resident Evil 4, a parasite called Las Plagas plays a part in the film and allows the undead to "run around, ride motorbikes, and shoot machine guns." An action scene inspired by Resident Evil 5 where the characters are driving a Hummer while being chased by zombies is featured, but for the film the Hummer was changed to a Rolls Royce Phantom. The metal bug on Jill Valentine's chest can be seen in Resident Evil 5.

Aside from the video games, writing for the film was heavily influenced by science-fiction films. "I think Inception had a huge impact on everyone," says Bolt, "and I think Westworld is an important film to Paul. Everybody knows, because he talks about it enough, the Alien series, Blade Runner, all these things are inspirations."

Makeup effects supervisor Paul Jones stated that he wanted the makeup on the zombies to look realistic. He took inspiration from Day of the Dead.

The film's fight sequences were influenced by Asian cinema. "We watched a lot of Thai movies this time around because of the movies (Powell) has done," says Anderson. "He did The Last Samurai as well. He has worked with a lot of Japanese stuntmen and he has worked with a lot of Hong Kong stuntmen. But we felt the area that hadn't been mined by western cinema much was that whole kind of high impact Thai style of fighting. So we just watched a lot of action sequences from a lot of Thai movies. There were moves and just a general feel that we thought we could infuse the movie with. You know, that kind of bone crunch where you really feel the impact. We tried to bring that into the movie, which is also good for 3D because obviously 3D makes it harder to sell those kind of fake phony punches because you see the distance between the fist and the face. So that kind of Thai style of fighting where you actually make contact is a lot stronger."

Casting

Returning from the previous film are: Milla Jovovich as Alice, Sienna Guillory (Jill Valentine) and Boris Kodjoe (Luther West). Shawn Roberts (Albert Wesker) makes a cameo appearance. Colin Salmon who played James "One" Shade and Michelle Rodriguez who played Rain Ocampo in the first film return. Oded Fehr who portrayed Carlos Olivera in the second and third film also returns. There will be two "versions" of Rain and Carlos; one being portrayed as "evil" and one as "good". The characters, Ada Wong (played by Li Bingbing), Leon S. Kennedy (Johann Urb) and Barry Burton (Kevin Durand) appear in the film. Ali Larter (Claire Redfield), Wentworth Miller (Chris Redfield) and Spencer Locke (K-Mart) do not return and they are presumed to have died in the attack on Arcadia or held captive elsewhere by Umbrella. Also, a new character portrayed by Aryana Engineer has been added to the franchise cast.

Filming

Principal photography started on October 10 and wrapped on December 23, 2011 for a 55-day shoot. Filming locations included Toronto at Cinespace's Kipling studio facility, Times Square in New York City, Tokyo, and Red Square in Moscow. Resident Evil: Retribution is the second film in the series to be shot in 3D, the first being Resident Evil: Afterlife. It was also filmed in 4K resolution. The Red Epic camera system was used, which producer Jeremy Bolt said is 50% smaller than the Sony F35 that was used for Resident Evil: Afterlife.

On October 11, a platform collapsed during the second day of filming and injured 16 people on the set. According to Toronto police, ten people were taken to the hospital for emergency treatment. Injuries included bruises and broken bones. Emergency workers had a difficult time determining which injuries were real since the people were dressed in zombie costumes with fake blood.

The streets of Red Square were cleared for a day and background filming was done in the Russian subway after it was cleared for five hours (although the subway station scene is actually the Lower Bay abandoned station of Toronto subway). Most of the streets were built into sets. The car chase scene was filmed in late November in Moscow.

Durand and Roberts wrapped filming in the first week of December and Li wrapped on December 14. A fight scene between Jill and Alice that involved over 200 moves began filming December 14 until the end of production.

Music

The music group Tomandandy, who performed the Afterlife score, returned to score Resident Evil: Retribution. Anderson explains that the score for this film will be a progression of Afterlife, stating that he "wants to kind of mesh their more electronic stuff with an orchestra this time. It still has that cool Tomandandy feel, but it has a more epic scope to it." The official soundtrack was released on September 11, 2012 under Milan Records, which included Tomandandy's score for the film, as well as the film's end credits song "Hexes" produced by Bassnectar featuring Chino Moreno (of the Deftones) on vocals. Singer Mika Nakashima will sing the theme song for the Japanese version of the film.

Marketing

The first teaser trailer of the film was attached to Underworld: Awakening, an installment from Resident Evil's rival film series, and released in January 2012, featuring product placement promoting Sony products such as the Xperia phone, the PlayStation Vita and the Tablet S before transitioning into a post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C., with Alice standing on the roof of the White House, in similar fashion to the promotion for previous installments, Apocalypse and Extinction.

A viral website, UmbrellaCorporation.net, supposedly informed about Umbrella, reported that it was on a recruitment tour all over the world searching for "great minds to help them advance". On several occasions, a video of Alice (Milla Jovovich) appeared, telling the viewer not to trust Umbrella. At the same time, an actual mobile tour for the film was launched, travelling to Cancún, Barcelona, Poznań, Warsaw and Rome. Furthermore, a black, tinted SUV with the Umbrella Corporation symbol and name on its doors and license plate was seen in Atlanta in June.

A second trailer premiered online on June 14, following a live Q&A with Milla Jovovich in New York City and was attached to prints of That's My Boy.

Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Oded Fehr, Boris Kodjoe, Mika Nakashima and Paul W. S. Anderson appeared at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con Convention on Friday, July 13. A discussion for the film took place, and never-before-seen footage debuted.

On August 10, 2012, a group of 27 people dressed as zombies "invaded" the Shibuya shopping district and handed out leaflets to promote the film. The group marched across the crossing in front of the Shibuya Station and then moved on to Shibuya's underground shopping area "Shibuchika" and to the "Shibuya Cine Palace".

Release

Resident Evil: Retribution was released worldwide on September 14, 2012 in 3D, IMAX 3D, and 2D. The MPAA's official rating for the film is R for "sequences of strong violence throughout". It was not screened in advance for critics.

The film's world premiere took place in Tokyo, Japan (where the film was retitled Biohazard V: Retribution) on September 3. Originally, a promotional stunt was planned that involved Jovovich pretending to come out with a gun and shoot "zombies" in the theater. In response to the Aurora shootings, Jovovich declined the stunt, commenting that "There's absolutely no way I'm doing anything violent in a movie theater." Jovovich, Anderson, and Nakashima appeared at the premiere for a red carpet event.

Li Bingbing did not appear at the premiere, raising speculation from reporters that her absence was a demonstration against the escalating dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands. Li's agent Ji Xiang explained that Li had been informed of the premiere two months before but she was too busy in Beijing to attend at that time. However, Ji did not deny that politics were involved, saying: "We are in line with our government – the Diaoyu Islands belong to China. Bingbing will be attending movie premieres held in other places across the world and she skipped the Tokyo leg only."

The film was released on December 21, 2012, on DVD, Blu-ray and Ultraviolet Digital Copy. The United Kingdom release is set for January 28, 2013, also on DVD, Blu-ray and Ultraviolet Digital Copy. Pre-order for was available in November 2012 on Amazon.

United States and Canada

Resident Evil: Retribution opened at #1 in 3,012 theaters, beating out the 3-D re-release of Finding Nemo. During its opening weekend, the film grossed $21,052,227 domestically (an average of $6,989 for each theater), which makes the film the second lowest domestic opening weekend in the series, with the lowest being the original Resident Evil ($17.7 million), though it sold the least tickets. The audience in the opening weekend was 64% male, and 55% were 25 years of age or older. Regular 3D showings accounted for 48% of ticket sales, while IMAX 3D contributed 14% and other large format showings contributed 4%. In its second weekend, the film dropped to fifth place behind newcomers End of Watch, Jennifer Lawrence's House at the End of the Street, and Trouble with the Curve with $6.7 million on the domestic charts. With a 68% decline from its previous weekend, this makes the worst domestic drop so far for a Resident Evil film. Its third weekend grossed $2.9 million, making a lighter 55% decrease and putting it into the number eight spot.

International territories

Resident Evil: Retribution broke the series record for the highest worldwide opening with $49.6 million, beating out Afterlife's opening of over $39 million. In its opening weekend, the film was strongest in Asia, where it had the best 2012 Hollywood debut so far in Japan ($11.2 million), Taiwan ($4.4 million) and Malaysia ($2 million). Its premiere in South Korea ($2 million) was underwhelming, where it underperformed to the local film Masquerade ($7.3 million). Elsewhere, the movie did very good business in Russia ($8.5 million) and Brazil ($3.1 million), but was disappointing in Australia ($1.5 million). The film retained the number one spot in its second weekend, grossing $30.5 million for a new foreign total of $103.8 million. Its top market was once again Japan, where it eased 27% to $6.3 million. Its new debuts included Germany ($3.6 million) and Mexico ($3.5 million). In its third weekend, the film dropped to the number two spot behind Looper, making $21.1 million. It had its premiere in France ($2 million), Italy ($1.4 million), and the United Kingdom ($1.3 million). The film broke $200 million in its fourth weekend, notably due to its opening in Spain ($1.4 million).

Worldwide, the film grossed $240 million, after the movie opened in China on 17 March. Although this does not match it's predecessor's gross of $296 million, it still ranks as the second highest grossing in the series, the highest grossing foreign film in Japan in 2012 (7th overall), and the highest grossing Canadian film of 2012, and second of all time (behind Afterlife).

Critical reception

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 31% based on reviews from 65 critics, with an average rating of 4.4 out of 10. The critical consensus on the site is "Resident Evil: Retribution offers everything one might reasonably expect from the fifth installment in a heavily action-dependent franchise – which means very little beyond stylishly hollow CGI-enhanced set pieces". On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 39 based on 17 reviews. CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a "C+" on an A+ to F scale.

Jim Vejvoda at IGN gave the film a 6 out of 10, saying, "Even with all of its dopey dialogue, wooden characters and 'been there, done that' elements, Resident Evil: Retribution is pretty amazing as far as entries in this series go. It certainly feels more like a video game and has a bit more emotion to it than some of the past Resident Evil sequels, but if you don't like this series then there's not much here to make you suddenly warm up to it." Clark Collis from Entertainment Weekly also gave the film a mostly positive review, stating that "writer-director W.S. Anderson's overseeing of the Resident Evil zombie franchise has proven to be both lunatically haphazard and dementedly enthusiastic."

Sequel

A sixth film was confirmed by Sony distribution's head, Rory Bruer. In an interview with Forbes, producer Samuel Hadida stated that a sixth and seventh installment were planned and a reboot of the series was possible. Sony officially scheduled the sixth movie for a September 12, 2014 premiere. Jovovich expressed her belief that the sixth film would come out in 2015. Anderson revealed in an interview that he would start shooting the film in fall 2013.

In February 2014, Collider reported that, according to Paul W.S. Anderson, there were no immediate plans in motion for a sixth installment in the popular franchise, but that both Anderson and Screen Gems were eager to add at least one more entry to the series. He said they would "like to do another Resident Evil movie, but the wheels aren’t quite in motion yet." The film will have Jovovich and Li reprising their roles as Alice and Ada and as with Afterlife and Retribution, the sixth will be in 3D. On June 16, 2014, Anderson told Collider that he was in the process of writing the final film, tentatively titled Resident Evil: The Final Chapter and stated that no dates had been set for the start of production or its release in theaters. On August 18, 2014 Jovovich announced on her Facebook page that she's pregnant with a second child and production on the film will be delayed. On January 21, 2015, Jovovich announced on her Facebook page that filming will start in August 2015. Jovovich confirmed through her instagram account that preparations for the movie began on July 19. On August 3, 2015, Deadline reports that Ali Larter will be reprising her role as Claire Redfield in the film. On September 18, 2015, production on the film began filming with Roberts reprising his role as Wesker and Iain Glen who portrayed Sam Isaacs in the second and third film will return as Dr. Alexander Isaacs, Sam's twin brother. Joining the cast are Ruby Rose as Abigail, Eoin Macken as Doc, William Levy as Christian, Fraser James as Michael and Rola as Cobalt. The film was released on January 27, 2017.