There is a moment in Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) when franchise stalwart Alice (Milla Jovovich) is confronted by the artificial intelligence (AI) known as the Red Queen (voiced by Ava Merson-O’Brian). The computer program controlling yet another of the evil Umbrella corporation’s underground facilities (though this one is actually underwater) tells Alice that she and all her friends are going to die down here. Alice’s response is emblematic of the entire series: “I’ve heard that before.” In other words, there is nothing new in this fifth installment of this action/horror set of films. Instead, they keep resurrecting long-dead characters, which, as I have said in other discussions of these movies, is not the most Catholic way of rising from the dead, theologically speaking. Anyway, on with the review.
That review of Resident Evil: Retribution begins by rewinding the final moments of Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), showing the Umbrella assault on Arcadia in reverse before replaying it forward and revealing that Alice is blown overboard and captured. She next appears in a considerably stranger setting, waking in suburban Raccoon City as an ordinary mother married to Todd (Oded Fehr) and raising their deaf daughter Becky (Aryana Engineer). Zombies invade the neighborhood, Todd is infected, and Alice flees with Becky before being killed by her zombified husband. The real Alice then awakens in an Umbrella cell, where a mind-controlled Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) interrogates her. A mysterious security failure allows Alice to escape into what appears to be Tokyo, where another outbreak suddenly begins. After fighting through the undead, she reaches a control room and meets Ada Wong (Li Bingbing), formerly one of Albert Wesker’s (Shawn Roberts) agents. Albert appears by video and explains that he no longer controls Umbrella. The Red Queen now does, and she has apparently concluded that exterminating humanity is the proper solution to the T-virus problem. Alice is actually inside Umbrella Prime, an enormous underwater installation beneath the ice near Kamchatka, Russia. Umbrella built replicas of cities and neighborhoods there, populated them with clones, and staged outbreaks to demonstrate its biological weapons to prospective buyers. In other words, entire human lives, complete with manufactured relationships and memories, were created merely to be killed for a sales presentation. Catholic teaching about human dignity hardly requires a difficult application here. Albert has sent a rescue team led by Leon S. Kennedy (Johann Urb), accompanied by Barry Burton (Kevin Durand), Luther West (Boris Kodjoe), Sergei Vladimir (Robin Kasyanov), and Tony Rosato (Ofilio Portillo). They enter the facility from above and plant explosives that will destroy it in two hours. Alice and Ada must cross the simulations to meet them. In a New York City environment, the women battle two enormous Axemen before reaching the suburban simulation, where Alice finds Becky hiding near the body of the Alice clone who had been her mother. Ada explains that Becky, Todd, and the suburban Alice were all clones, but Becky recognizes the real Alice as her mother and Alice cannot bring herself to abandon the girl. Jill arrives with Umbrella soldiers that include clones of several dead characters, including Rain Ocampo (Michelle Rodriguez), Carlos Olivera, and James “One” Shade (Colin Salmon). Ada stays behind to cover Alice and Becky’s escape and is captured. The pair reaches the Moscow simulation and encounters another Rain clone, this one a pacifist who had been a friend of Becky’s family. Alice arms Rain and leaves Becky with her while she goes to help Leon’s team, which is being attacked by heavily armed Las Plagas zombies. Alice arrives in a car, and the survivors race through Moscow pursued by the undead and a gigantic Licker. They eventually reach the submarine pens and reunite, but the Licker snatches Becky and kills the friendly Rain. Alice refuses to leave the child behind and pursues the creature into the cloning area. There, Becky sees rows of identical versions of herself and Alice and finally asks the obvious question: if the dead woman in suburbia was a clone, is Alice really her mother? Alice answers simply that she is now. So dedicated to her new role as mother is Alice that she risks their mission to escape in order to save Becky, managing to destroy the Licker during the rescue. Elsewhere, Barry sacrifices himself while holding off Jill’s forces so Leon and Luther can reach the elevator before the explosives detonate. The blast floods Umbrella Prime, but Alice, Becky, Leon, and Luther make it to the surface. Their escape across the ice is interrupted when a submarine bursts upward carrying Jill, the hostile Rain clone, and the captured Ada. Rain injects herself with the Las Plagas parasite and becomes nearly impossible to kill, while Jill attacks Alice. Alice manages to rip the mind-control device from Jill’s chest, restoring her former ally. Rain kills Luther and overwhelms Leon, but Alice realizes she does not need to kill Rain herself. She shoots the ice beneath her, sending Rain into the freezing water, where infected creatures drag her under. Alice later awakens aboard a helicopter with Becky, Ada, Leon, and Jill as they fly to Washington, D.C. The White House has become a heavily fortified refuge for the remnants of humanity, and Albert has established himself inside. He injects Alice with the T-virus, restoring the powers he removed in the previous film because, according to him, she is humanity’s ultimate weapon. Alice understandably threatens to kill him, but Albert tells her they now share a common enemy. The Red Queen intends to eliminate every remaining human being. On the White House roof, Alice sees soldiers defending the perimeter against an immense army of zombies and mutated creatures surrounding Washington. After spending most of the film escaping an underwater testing facility filled with recycled people and recycled situations, Alice learns that everything has merely prepared her for humanity’s last stand.
This revelation at the end of Resident Evil: Retribution is nothing new to her. Neither are the impossible things we see in these movies as the audience. When talking about the previous installments, I have discussed how it is not good for us to be playing God, which is the real reason why Umbrella is evil. The fact that it becomes a global catastrophe of epic proportions should be an indication of the dangers of humans trying to create their own version of life. This extends to AI. There has been considerable consternation in recent years over whether increasingly powerful AI could someday pose an existential threat to humanity. Not long after hearing such concerns, I had the perfect solution: teach AI to be Catholic. More precisely, build and govern it according to Catholic principles. Whatever the personal beliefs of the people creating these systems, technology inevitably reflects something of the worldview and values of its developers, owners, users, and regulators. Perhaps I am being naïve, but my instinct tells me that if a Catholic sense of the sacredness and inherent dignity of every human life, from conception to natural death, were built into the ethical framework governing these machines, we might worry less for our species. Oddly enough, this film in particular has a couple of sequences that speak to this idea. The first is mentioned above when Alice takes on the role of mother to the clone Becky. The other is related to it, when Leon says that Alice is more important than Becky. Catholicism teaches instead that every human person possesses equal inherent dignity before God. As such, it is refreshing to see Alice has willingly taken responsibility for Becky as her mother. Regardless of the artificiality of the relationship between Becky and Alice, the new mother makes the right call to attempt to save her child.
It feels quite strange to say anything nice about Resident Evil: Retribution, though that does not mean I recommend it. It is as bad as the rest, and there are a myriad of better things you can be doing with your time than watching it.
