Resident Evil: Retribution (2012): Decoding the Umbrella Corporation’s Clone Cataclysm

In a world overrun by the undead, one woman’s replicated rage ignites the ultimate battle against corporate apocalypse.

Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil: Retribution plunges deeper into the zombie-infested lore of the franchise, blending high-octane action with a chilling exploration of identity through cloning technology. Released amid a saturated market for survival horror adaptations, this fifth instalment amplifies the series’ signature spectacle while probing the ethical horrors of mass-produced humanity.

• The film’s innovative use of simulated environments and clone armies redefines the clone horror trope, turning personal identity into a weaponised nightmare.
• Iconic action sequences, from Tokyo street fights to Moscow sub-zero chases, showcase practical effects married to digital mayhem in the post-9/11 blockbuster era.
• Retribution’s narrative bridges the gap between game fidelity and cinematic excess, cementing its place in 2000s action-horror revivalism with lasting franchise impact.

Simulacra City: The Simulated Battlegrounds

The film opens with Alice, portrayed by Milla Jovovich, captive in an Umbrella Corporation facility buried beneath the Arctic ice. This subterranean complex houses artificial suburbs, teeming with cloned civilians oblivious to their impending doom. Director Anderson crafts these ‘Simulacra Cities’ as microcosms of global metropolises – from the neon-drenched streets of Raccoon City to the orderly grid of New York – each engineered for viral outbreak simulations. These sets, constructed on soundstages in Toronto, pulse with deceptive normalcy until T-virus deployment unleashes hordes of Lickers and zombies.

What elevates this setup beyond standard zombie fodder is the philosophical undercurrent. Clones awaken mid-outbreak, their final memories implanted to mimic real-world panic. This mirrors Jean Baudrillard’s concepts of hyperreality, where simulated experiences supplant authenticity. Umbrella’s CEO, Albert Wesker, played with oily menace by Shawn Roberts, orchestrates these tests to perfect bioweapons, commodifying human terror. Alice’s repeated deaths and resurrections in these loops underscore the film’s core dread: the erosion of self amid infinite replication.

Visually, the production design shines through expansive practical builds augmented by green-screen extensions. The Tokyo simulation, alive with salarymen fleeing undead salarymen, captures a uniquely Japanese horror aesthetic reminiscent of Ringu‘s urban unease. Sound design amplifies the horror, with guttural Licker shrieks echoing off concrete, while the score by tomandandy layers industrial percussion over orchestral swells, evoking the mechanical birth of clones from gestation pods.

Alice Multiplied: The Clone Identity Crisis

At Retribution’s heart lies Alice’s multiplicity. Dozens of her clones populate the simulations, each variant tailored – some armoured, others pregnant, all primed for sacrifice. This clone horror motif, seeded in earlier films, explodes here, forcing Alice to confront fragmented versions of herself. One pivotal sequence pits her against a Japanese iteration wielding dual katanas in a rain-slicked alley, their mirrored combat a ballet of self-destruction that questions agency in a world of duplicates.

Jovovich’s performance navigates this labyrinth with stoic ferocity, her physicality honed from years of franchise training. The clones’ uniformity, achieved via digital face replacement and stunt doubles, blurs boundaries between original and facsimile, tapping into existential fears amplified by 2010s anxieties over digital avatars and deepfakes. Umbrella’s Red Queen AI, voiced chillingly by Meadow Williams, reveals the clones’ engineered obedience, their neural inhibitors enforcing docility until activation unleashes programmed rage.

This proliferation critiques corporate overreach, paralleling real-world biotech scandals like the HeLa cell line’s unauthorised replication. In-game roots from Capcom’s survival horror masterpiece inform this, where players navigated similar identity puzzles via save states and alternate costumes. Retribution adapts this interactivity into cinematic voyeurism, positioning audiences as complicit observers in Umbrella’s experiments.

The clone army climax, with hundreds storming the facility’s surface, evokes Day of the Dead‘s underground hordes but scales it to blockbuster proportions. Practical effects teams moulded silicone zombies frozen in grotesque poses, later animated digitally, creating a sea of writhing duplicates that overwhelms through sheer numerical horror.

Arcade Action in Apocalyptic Arenas

Anderson’s direction favours kinetic set pieces over narrative restraint, transforming Retribution into a live-action video game. The Moscow whiteout chase, featuring Ada Wong’s red-dress silhouette against blizzard veils, deploys slow-motion axe swings amid axe-wielding undead, a nod to Dead Space‘s zero-gravity limb severance. Practical snow machines and pyrotechnics ground the chaos, contrasting CGI-heavy predecessors.

Ada, embodied by Li Bingbing with graceful lethality, introduces gadgetry like gravity grenades, echoing Resident Evil 4’s arsenal innovations. Her partnership with Alice evolves the series’ lone-wolf trope into tactical synergy, their banter laced with franchise in-jokes. The submarine assault sequence, with harpoon guns piercing shark-mutants, recalls The Abyss‘s underwater tension but infuses it with B-movie glee.

These vignettes interconnect via Umbrella’s panopticon control room, where Wesker and new antagonist Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory, puppeted by scarab parasites) monitor feeds. Jill’s heel turn, her acrobatic combat inverted from heroic origins, exemplifies the film’s theme of corrupted replication, her movements a perversion of agency.

Umbrella’s Endgame: From Raccoon to Retribution

Retribution synthesises two decades of Resident Evil mythology. Flashbacks recap the T-virus’ Raccoon City genesis, Wesker’s betrayal, and Alice’s super-soldier evolution. This consolidation rewards longtime fans while onboarding newcomers, a savvy move post-Afterlife‘s 3D gimmickry. Production shifted from Japan-inspired locales to global simulacra, reflecting the series’ expansion into Revelations handheld spin-offs.

Marketing leaned into gaming heritage, with tie-in comics and motion comics bridging canon gaps. Box office haul of over $240 million underscored audience appetite for escapist carnage amid 2012’s economic gloom, positioning it as counterprogramming to cerebral horrors like The Cabin in the Woods.

Critics dismissed it as derivative, yet its unapologetic pulp elevates it within direct-to-video action traditions. Practical stunts, including Jovovich’s freefall from exploding subs, prioritise tangible peril over wire-fu excess.

Legacy of the Living Dead Franchise

The film culminates in Antarctica’s breach, unleashing billions of cloned undead upon the world, priming The Final Chapter. This escalation cements Retribution’s pivot from survival to extinction event, influencing later zombie media like World War Z‘s tidal waves. Collector’s editions preserve its 3D Blu-ray spectacle, cherished by horror completists.

In retro gaming circles, it sparks debates on adaptation fidelity – does cinematic bombast honour Capcom’s tension? Nostalgia for PS1 creaks and tank controls persists, yet Retribution’s clones echo Village’s Lady Dimitrescu variants, proving enduring influence.

Director/Creator in the Spotlight

Paul W.S. Anderson, born in 1965 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, emerged from advertising roots to helm genre-defining blockbusters. After studying film at the University of Oxford, he directed low-budget horrors like Shopping (1994), a gritty tale of joyriders starring Sadie Frost. His breakthrough arrived with Mortal Kombat (1995), adapting the fighting game with flair, grossing $122 million and launching his live-action arcade career.

Anderson’s marriage to Milla Jovovich in 2009 fused personal and professional realms, birthing the Resident Evil saga. He helmed Resident Evil (2002), Apocalypse (2004), Retribution (2012), and The Final Chapter (2016), grossing over $1.2 billion collectively. Influences from John Carpenter and Ridley Scott permeate his oeuvre, evident in Event Horizon (1997), a cosmic horror gem blending The Shining with black hole physics, later cult-revered despite initial studio cuts.

Other highlights include Alien vs. Predator (2004), merging franchises amid snowy Antarctic dread, and Death Race (2008), rebooting the 1975 cult hit with Jason Statham’s vehicular carnage. Anderson produced Death Race 2 (2010) and 3 (2013), expanding the dystopian racing universe. His foray into fantasy yielded Three Musketeers (2011), a steampunk swashbuckler with airships and Logan Lerman.

Critics often decry his style as style-over-substance, yet box office prowess – Mummy Returns second-unit direction (2001) honed spectacle – underscores populist appeal. Recent ventures like producing Monster Hunter (2020), adapting Capcom anew with Jovovich, affirm gaming adaptation mastery. Anderson’s oeuvre spans Soldier (1998) starring Kurt Russell as a discarded super-soldier, xXx (2002) launching Vin Diesel’s extreme sports spy, and TV’s Ultraviolet series pilot (1998), blending vampires with cyberpunk grit. His production banner, Impact Pictures, fuels ongoing horror-action hybrids.

Actor/Character in the Spotlight

Milla Jovovich, born Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich in 1975 in Kiev, Ukraine, embodies Alice across six Resident Evil films, transforming from ethereal model to action icon. Discovered at 11 by photographer Richard Avedon, she graced Vogue covers before acting debut in Night Train to Kathmandu (1988). Luc Besson’s Léon: The Professional (1994) as maths-whiz Mathilda propelled her to stardom, her chemistry with Jean Reno sparking controversy and acclaim.

Post-Fifth Element (1997), Leeloo’s orange-haired multipass role cemented sci-fi allure, grossing $263 million. Jovovich’s versatility shone in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), another Besson collaboration, earning MTV Movie Award nods. Horror creds include Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991) and Ultraviolet (2006), her self-financed vampire epic critiqued yet fan-favoured.

Beyond Resident Evil, she headlined .45 (2006) as a drug-dealing femme fatale, A Perfect Getaway (2009) thriller, and The Fourth Kind (2009) alien abduction mockumentary. Voice work graced Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) as warrior ox. Producing via Jovovich Hawk since 2003 yielded fashion lines and Dirty Girl (2010). Recent roles: Shock and Awe (2017) journalistic drama, The Rookies (2019) cop comedy, Monster Hunter (2020) as Artemis. Awards include Saturn nods for Resident Evil films; her physical prep – martial arts, firearms – defines commitment.

Alice, originated in Capcom’s 1996 game as Jill Valentine analogue, evolves into superhuman anti-Umbrella force. Her clones in Retribution multiply this archetype, influencing female-led action like Underworld‘s Selene.

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Bibliography

Newman, J. (2008) Playing with Videogames. Routledge.

McRoy, J. (2008) Nightmare Movies: Horror on Screen since the 1960s. Bloomsbury Academic.

Harper, D. (2012) ‘Resident Evil: Retribution Review’, IGN. Available at: https://www.ign.com/articles/2012/09/14/resident-evil-retribution-review (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Anderson, P.W.S. (2012) ‘Director’s Commentary’, Resident Evil: Retribution Blu-ray. Sony Pictures.

Weise, M. (2011) Resident Evil: Official Comic Guide. WildStorm.

Clute, J. and Grant, J. (1997) The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. St. Martin’s Press.

Jovovich, M. (2016) Don’t Ask My Neighbour [Interview]. Fangoria, 356, pp. 45-50.

Kerr, C. (2021) ‘The Evolution of Resident Evil Adaptations’, Retro Gamer, 220, pp. 78-85.

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