At WonderCon over the weekend, director Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich were on hand to reveal a new action clip from Resident Evil: Retribution, the fifth installment in the Resident Evil franchise. While the clip has yet to be released, IGN has provided a description below, which you can skip if you don't want the movie spoiled (but, remember, this is only Resident Evil: Retribution we're talking about, so you probably already have a good idea of what it's about).
In the scene, Alice (Jovovich) runs down a stark white corridor. She's holding a gun and has chains linked to both her wrists, indicating she's just broken free from captivity. A single female zombie runs at her, and Alice turns and uses the chains as weapons, whipping them forward and knocking the zombie down, as one by one, more and more enter the room. What follows was a highly stylized and fun scene, as Alice uses the combo of the chains, the gun and her body to take out the zombies.
One highlight was a zombie leaping at her, as she slides beneath him, shooting him as he flies over. Things get even more audacious when she runs out of ammo and takes out a new clip, only to be rushed by a zombie, sending her clip flying into the air. Alice discharges her empty clip and kicks it hard, into the face of the zombie. She then catches her full clip, loads it (while snapping the neck of a zombie!) and goes back to shooting. In one very fun shot, we see the POV of a zombie she's knocked to the ground as she shoots it in the head and blood splatters the camera.
Finally, the only zombie left "alive" is the very first one who came at Alice. They walk towards each other and the zombie opens her mouth, with it transforming into a large, maw-like opening. Alice aims her gun forward (at the camera) and shoots, the bullet flying forward (in 3D, of course)… and end of scene.
I make no secret that I don't have high expectations of Resident Evil movies, but I'm glad to hear that zombies are back in the mix, and that the movie could deliver some interesting action scenes (likely without any relevance to the story, but still). Jovovich told Zap2It all about the sequel's action.
There are quite a few fight scenes. They're intense. Some of the most complex action sequences I've done in an action film. We got a lot of inspiration from Thai cinema. People in that word make brutal contact with each other. It's really violent and raw. In 3-D, you really have to hit people to sell it. I've been trained my whole life not to hit someone during a scene, and now they're like, "Hit them, Mila! Just hit them!"
Anderson spoke to STYD about the footage, which the writer-director says was set inside Umbrella.
The clip we're showing today — set in the corridors of Umbrella — we've spend so much time in corridors. Corridors made of metal, corridors made of this and that. How are we going to be different? The production design in this movie is out of this world. Beautiful. We manufactured this one particular set out of glass — the type they make skyscrapers out of. It gave us a unique visual look because it's sort of self-illuminating. We had lights coming through the floor, wall and ceiling. So crisp and white. But once you start spraying the blood around, you've got red on the white floor, Milla dressed in black. It's a graphic and fresh look. It's definitely a Resident Evil movie. There's Milla, the undead, the Umbrella corporation logo — but it's a look you've never seen before in the franchise. That's what I'm always looking for.
Also new to Retribution will be seeing Milla in suburbia, something revealed in the movie's teaser trailer, something that Anderson says takes up "a pretty big chunk" of the movie.
It's not the whole film and but there's a big chunk where you spend time with her in that environment and you really get into it. It's a piece I'm really proud of because, again, we've never really done this in the "real world." The first movie was in this stylized environment and, since then, has always been apocalyptic. So, to go to this real suburban neighborhood was a real thrill.
And I came up with the right story idea to explore that environment. It was fun to shoot in a real suburban environment. None of the home owners wanted us there. None of them. It was an up market with fairly rich people. They didn't need the location fees we were giving them. But, every kid in the neighborhood wanted us there. Basically, all of the teen kids bullied their parents into letting us shoot there for a week. In return, all of the kids kind of became zombies in the movies. By the end, though, they wanted to kick us out because we were setting things on fire, crashing things - even if they thought it was fun, what they did not want is this big film crew at the end of their garden. When we pulled out, I told my team to shoot everything we needed because we were never going to get the chance to come back for re-shoots.
Anderson also spoke of his love of the Resident Evil franchise.
This is a franchise I'm incredibly proud of. When you go from the humble beginnings of the first film, which was a film financed outside of studio system - we didn't have a U.S. distribution deal in place - it went from this little film that could to building a billion dollar franchise. To evolve from that contained chamber piece horror the first movie was to a much more epic scope is very gratifying. It is an evolution though, because you look at the history of other franchises - which I do a lot - the ones that succeed are the ones that evolve. They say learn from the best or steal from the best and, obviously, a big fan of Alien, you look at the first two movies - from Ridley [Scott] and [James] Cameron - they're a genius lesson in how to keep a franchise fresh. The way Cameron came in and knew Ridley had done such a good job with that tight, claustrophobic movie there was no way he could match that. So, he made his own film - scary but it had all of these action elements as well. That's always been a lesson for me and that's what I tried to apply here. Allow yourself to evolve and mutate so you're delivering familiar elements for the fans but do something fresh as well.
Resident Evil: Retribution opens September 14th.
