It's going to be very rare for me to come around here and do a movie review, but seeing as I mainly started That's Entertainment to focus on video games, and Resident Evil is probably the most well-known video game related movie franchise, I'm willing to give it a pass.
While there have been very few successful videogame film adaptations, there have been a few series that have managed to break the mold, and prove that these types of films are capable of bringing success.
Among them, Prince of Persia made the most so far, bringing in $335m while it was at the box office. It also had the loftiest budget for a videogame adaptation. The Bruckheimer project cost $200m to take to theaters.
Another one had the highest yield, despite a paltry budget. Mortal Kombat managed to make a whopping 679% of its budget back at the box office, earning almost seven times its $18m budget. That's almost 200% higher than any other videogame adaptation has made back in the box office, in proportion to how much producers and financiers put into them.
The first high profile release among them all was the Angelina Jolie fronted Tomb Raider, which, at the time, had an unheard of budget for the project, that was three times greater than the first game inspired movie, the massive failure, Super Mario Bros. It inspired a successful sequel as well, becoming one of only four franchises to develop a series that didn't get dropped immediately to the DVD rack.
On opposite sides of that spectrum, two fighting series bookend the franchises. Mortal Kombat had the most impressive single showing of any movie, while Street Fighter, with the more recent release of "The Legend of Chun-Li", became the first theater release that was part of a series not to make it's budget back (earning only a miserable 26% of its initial cost).
There's one other franchise, however, that isn't on it's last legs, and seen consistent releases over the years. It has dominated financially and critically (proportionate to other game franchises anyway). Resident Evil has been on the scene since 2002, and over the last 10 years, they've churned out another four films, the most recent releasing on September 14th, Resident Evil: Retribution.
Retribution has two huge stigmas that threaten to ruin it. First, it is a videogame based film. That is rapidly becoming a forgotten notion, but it still is worth worrying about, as certain directors are still trying to take the lazy route and make money off of these intellectual properties. It also suffers from being the fifth movie in a series. When was the last time you saw a movie in the theater that even made it to part five besides Harry Potter or Fast and the Furious?
Yet, in spite of all this, Retribution is still looking to set records and show that Resident Evil is still king at the box office. Not even two weeks out, the film has already made back its budget twofold. But it's been indicated before that even a dud can bring back the fans. So, does this fifth outing do enough for the series to keep it going strong?
In a word, yes. First and foremost, there is a tremendous amount of fan service in Retribution. While we saw Jill Valentine at the end of Afterlife, this marks her first full return to the series since Apocalypse. Also, rounding out the first four protagonists from the game series, Leon Kennedy makes his film debut. They didn't exactly manage to capture his personality from the videogames, but it's still nice to see all the characters finally represented. They even throw in an extra character that you wouldn't expect this late in the franchise.
Beyond that, they pull way back. If you've seen trailers, you know that characters that we haven't seen since the first Resident Evil movie are back. It fits very well in the persona that the franchise has established, although if it were any other series, it would be quite jarring indeed.
The action sequences are by far the best we've seen yet. While the first couple movies felt very campy (which has been welcome to fans of the series), this film feels like a summer blockbuster. Movements don't seem as though they are on wire. Instead, it looks as though Milla Jovovich is quite possibly performing all of the stunts on her own.
Music also lends itself wonderfully to the title. This is definitely a very ably composed score, and the integrity of the film was enhanced by it's inclusion.
All in all, this was my favorite movie in the Resident Evil series so far. It's very different from the others though, and it starts off with a huge, displacing bang, so fans should expect some of the threads from the previous movie to go unseen.
No comments:
Post a Comment