Aliens Paul Anderson is one of the most outstanding directors of action, who made several of the greatest film adaptations of computer games, after the first “Abode” left the franchise for some time in the wrong hands, and even in the last fourth film, returning to the director’s chair, could not competently pull the action, heading somewhere in the wrong steppe script. Now, in the fifth film, Anderson has done just a grandiose job over the mistakes, correcting all the shortcomings and, most importantly, preserving all the best that was in this series of films.
The fifth part begins with a graceful, scrolled back prologue, showing the wonders of modern 3D-technologies and the sensuality and admiration with which Paul stars his wife Milla Jovovich, who still looks chic in the action-amplois. But a colorful prologue to beautiful music is needed only for a bridge with the past, far from the best, but extremely commercially successful part. And then a truly exciting action begins, playing on the verge of reality and fiction, with strange flashback memories that help, as in the grandiose first film, only to bring all the scenes into a powerful overall picture of events.
The hordes of zombies that have seized the world still degenerate humanism, giving birth to their own kind, or even much more terrible creatures, mutate or evolve further, and people feel like they are strangers on this planet, but still fight for their existence. But “Resident Evil” for the better is very different from the template variety of zombie films, and therefore even with so many sequels can always present something new and successful.
The fifth film is revealed in homages to almost all parts of the franchise. The concept of flashbacks, the return of the long-awaited Lizun, boogies with axes, zombies with tentacles, the fuss with the search for a girl, (even not so much reminiscent of the second “Abode”, how much the homage to the masterpiece “Aliens”), the return of old characters like the heroine Michelle Rodriguez, and with all this “Revenge” introduces fresh heroes – finally there are game Ada Wong and Leon Kennedy, and also unfolds the action in the game concept, populating the plot with levels and bosses.
Here is the heroine fighting off hobbling and running zombies in Tokyo, here are two mutated giants delivering cars in New York, the most beautiful is done with Russian zombies - the Moscow dead are so severe that leaving, according to the canons of primitive instincts and one need - food, manage to wander with chainsaws, shoot with rifles, and even drive motorcycles and other vehicles! For the sake of Moscow zombies and the chase on Red Square from the giant Lizun, the size of King Kong, it was already worth starting this film and is definitely worth watching!
Returned not only to the monsters, but also to the theme of the Queens, again exposing the villainous Red Queen with a re-casting role, and Wesker unexpectedly played with new sides of his personality, and Alice finally regained her special abilities, foolishly lost in the quadriquel, becoming again a chic weapon in the embodiment of the combat heroine.
Action is off the charts. Here fights, and shootouts, fights between characters and shooting various monsters, explosions and chases, everything is at the highest level, and the quality of the effects exceeds not very high-quality graphics of the past parts. If, for all the genius of the very first picture of the graphics, Lizun there still cuts his eyes in comparison with modern graphic examples, the fifth film proudly stands at the top of technology, presenting natural and creepy monsters completely alive and real.
With a large abundance of characters, you can not say that the film is overloaded with them. Many are allowed to correctly open up and show themselves properly. True, not all, but the rest can simply be attributed to a number of pleasant cameos. Where the characters are summed up by dialogue - saves the behavior and the overall action inside the scenes, the staging of combat scenes still reminds us of who shot the greatest "Mortal Kombat", set the bar for the film adaptation of video games at an unattainable highest level, the staging of the fights of which still reminds itself in his new projects. And some reproaches in secondaryness and repetitions go side by side with admiration for original and cool ideas.
“Resident Evil” finally came out of the niche of zombie horror, becoming a fantastic cool action movie with monsters and mutants, which was supposed to be. To all sorts of giant spiders from the game and the monstrous form of Wesker, unfortunately, it has not yet come, but there is at least a sixth part ahead. And in the fifth there are already many successful changes and bright advantages in this direction from the huge Lizun to winged creatures for the final, so that the new film will still have a lot to walk around, although the fifth part can be safely considered the ideal adaptation of a computer game and one of the best fantastic action films of the last decade.
Thanks to touching family flashbacks, Anderson introduced a soul into the film that was observed at most in the third film and rather superficially. Here emotions came to the fore, without overtaking the abundance of bloody fights and shootouts, kept in perfect balance. However, this family soulfulness added to the film the need for suspense and experience, as well as the characters returned from the dead in a very successful way, for whom you can now worry and experience in a new way.
Extremely original way spelled out in the film and the scale of the action, transitions from memories to reality, and in terms of landscapes from Tokyo to Moscow. If the first part took the originality of its enclosed space, the fifth acts as the antipode, but with such a grand scale that it finally looks no less masterpiece than the first film. “Retribution” was not just “the best part after the first,” but what equaled the original due to the abundance of similarities and differences. The theme of confined space and scale of actions is played here in a balanced contrast, and interesting ideas and their grandiose embodiment make it possible to consider the scenario of “Revenge” really chic!
The film may be proud of the R rating, thanks to which we have not second-rate fiction in the censorship wrapper for kindergarten, but a really horror fighter with an abundance of bloody shootouts, brutal cruelty, broken limbs, and even a glimpse of naked Milla Jovovich. Boo-effects, creepy creatures and successful makeup on zombies perform the part of the film that takes on being a horror movie, well, endless shootouts, fights and tricks turn the action into a beautiful fantastic action.
The film on the computer game is built really in a game manner, even in camera work it resembles video inserts in the middle of the gameplay itself. Togo and wait for the view to move behind the back, and the joystick will be in your hands to begin the passage of a new level. Levels, however, are held here without spectator participation, it is the cinema. Not yet interactive, but exciting, spectacular and towering above the previous sequels of Resident Evil to an unprecedented height!
10 out of 10
Original