Resident Evil: Retribution

Not exactly sure who is retributing who here, but for this series of movies I guess having your title sound like the name of a nu-metal album is more important than having it make sense. Speaking of making sense, Alice, our stalwart hero, finds herself captured by the Umbrella Corporation (UMB [NYSE] $12.84 -3.81). She must fight her way through a buncha computer simulations to escape, and if there's any truth in the world it's that nothing is more fun than watching somebody play a shitty video game for two hours! In the end it turns out the true monster is man, specifically the man who greenlit five fucking Resident Evil movies.

RATING: 26%

Resident Evil: Afterlife

It's the fourth movie in the Resident Evil series and you're watching it because, I dunno, you wanna be the cool aunt and you're babysitting your ten year old goth niece or something? There's not really a good other reason to get caught up in these flicks (I mean, a non-blog related reason). So in this one Alice gets de-superpowered, ends up in LA with some jerky survivors with whom she must make her way to a floating oil tanker that promises safe haven. Now, question - why if all of humanity is basically destroyed does the evil Umbrella corporation keep running military experiments to sell to the now non-existant governments? Answer - cuz heavy metal, dude, kablow, did you see that one zombie get totally shot in the face?

RATING: 45%

Resident Evil: Extinction

You know what's pretty irritating - when a movie series of more than two films decides to forgo the traditional, lame "numbering" in favor of just a colon and an "extreme" title like "Apocalypse" or "Extinction." Well now I gotta keep looking up which movie is next on the list to watch, idiot movie execs! Anyway, this movie is beautifully shot, using a Mad Max style desert wasteland to great cinematic effect. Now Alice has to help a group of escapees get to a promised land in Alaska but oh no! The Umbrella corporation is, uh, cloning her and also there's an evil super scientist that stands in her way. I am watching these movies because it's Halloween season, but they are not horror flicks, just action movies that happen to have zombies in them.

RATING: 51%

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

This sequel picks up where the first left off - Alice (Milla Jovavich) wakes up in a hospital bed after an unknown amount of time to discover (gasp!) there's a zombie apocalypse! I mean, a Resident Evil Apocalypse! The virus has spread into Raccoon City, and it's up to a small group of adventurers featuring our old friend Alice, Jill Valentine, a pimp played by Mike Epps, and a generic white cop I can't even remember the name of. The plot is ludicrous but the action is pretty good - Alice now has superpowers because she got injected with Zombie Dust when she was asleep. Anyway, she has to beat the rocket launcher boss from Resident Evil 3, and whereas I had to have a backpack full of herbs and ammo to do so circa 2001, she manages to do it by making him feel feelings. So that's what the red herb was for!

RATING: 52%

Resident Evil

(In a continuation of me and Quammy's Halloween tradition, I am going to review two horror franchises, starting with everybody's favorite video game adaptation, Resident Evil!)

Everybody hates this movie, and I can sort of see why - it suffers from a lot of the problems of early 2000s action movies (including CGI that looks faker than the original Playstation One game, confusing storyline, needless SWAT guys in heavy armor), and strays pretty far from the source material. At the time avoiding zombies for half the film was a detriment, but now, in 2014, years after we've reached Peak Zombie, that is totally fine. Anyway, we all know the plot - a virus leaks and an evil corporation tries to cover it up but that doesn't exactly go so well! I'd also like to point out that this movie franchise is the longest running theatrical action franchise to feature a woman in the lead (apart from Underworld, and that actually might be it), so extra points for that.

RATING: 57%