This is the trailer for Resident
Evil: Retribution. Written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, it is the
fifth instalment in the Resident Evil film
series, released in 2012. Anderson also wrote and directed the first film, and
the fourth instalment of the series. The film stars Milla Jovovich, Sienna
Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, Shawn Roberts, Oded Fehr, Johann Urb and many
others. The Resident Evil film series
is based on the video game series, created and owned by Capcom. As a fan of
both the video game series and the film series, it is interesting to see how
this film, as well as the others, tie in with the video games’ storyline –
although the tie is loose. For example, characters such as Ada and Leon feature in several of the video games, whereas Milla Jovovich’s character Alice does
not appear in any of the video games. I believe that the concept of creating a
series of films based on a series of video games is extremely effective: a big
part of my seeing the films at all was due to growing up playing the video
games – as I’m sure was the case for many others.
The film had a budget of $65 million, earning an impressive $240,159,255
at box office almost quadrupling its worth, and proving its success. The point
of a film trailer is ultimately to convince people to watch the film being
advertised by grabbing their attention and revealing small parts of the
storyline. This trailer does exactly that – it reveals to the audience
interesting and significant, yet small parts of the plot. In this case, one of
these pieces of information is that Alice’s memories have been imprinted in her
mind. This is an intriguing part of the plot to reveal, for a couple of
reasons. One being that the trailer starts with an equilibrium – a typical,
American suburb in which Alice lives with her husband [we know she is married
from the extreme close-up in which we see her eyes and a ring as she has her
hand placed close enough beside her head for the ring to be in the frame] and
daughter, causing the audience to realise that this equilibrium was fake, as
well as this being a realisation for Alice who has the fact revealed to her by Li Bingbing’s character, Ada.
The second is that this is the fifth instalment to the Resident Evil film series, meaning that for anyone that has seen
the previous four films, anything recalled from Alice’s memory in any of the
previous instalment is immediately called into question as to whether or not it is
true.
As the film switches from the disrupted equilibrium to show the audience
what is really going on, there are a number of captions. At first, these are
written in a simple, neat font in white placed on a plain black background.
Then, the final caption at this stage which reads ‘NEVER EXISTED’, changes to a
sharper, metallic font on a dark, fog-like background. This new font is silver
in colour, typical of the Resident Evil film
series, and may connote knives, or even part of the genre of the film –
science-fiction. The new background for these captions also creates a sense of
disorientation, which then leads to a further element of mystery. In addition to
this, the voice over revealing that Alice’s memories are fake continues over a
cut which shows one of these ‘memories’ in black and white – the transition
being static like a camera that has stopped functioning properly. This further
adds to the sense of mystery and disorientation.
I think that the extreme close-up of Alice’s eyes being one of the first
things we see in the trailer is effective as it introduces the character to the
audience almost immediately. At the same time, the background music which has
been playing since the trailer began with two establishing shots becomes lower
with the sound of an alarm clock interrupting it. At this point, the main sound
in the trailer is dialogue, with the background music stopping eventually –
possibly to show that the equilibrium is about to be destroyed. Sure enough,
that is exactly what happens. After another few seconds of normality, a monster
comes crashing in attacking Alice’s husband, signifying the typical disruption
required in any horror film. From here there are a number of cuts showing the
monsters, and Alice and Becky’s escape all mixed together.
At this point the audience is given more information as to what’s
actually happening – that Alice is under control, as revealed by Wesker [Shawn
Roberts. After this, we get another voice over, this time from Alice, informing
us that she was used to perfect ‘the virus’, and now that everyone and
everything she knows is being used against her, and that ‘now, they can
manipulate the world’. All of this is a lot to take in, but there is one key
piece of information – Alice is part of something much bigger than the audience
had perhaps anticipated. We can gather this as we are told that ‘they can
manipulate the world’, as well as being told that ‘this is humanity’s last stand’, as though the upcoming
events are like a final battle, emphasising that there have been similar events
beforehand.
Throughout all of this, there are more cuts and fades from scene to
scene, introducing us to more characters and showing us more of the events
within the film. This is another way to try and pull in consumers – they may
see an actor or actress they particularly like, which may persuade them to see
the film. Amongst these are a large variety of camera angles and shots,
including mid-shots, long-shots, close-ups, and pans.
Although Resident Evil:
Retribution is a horror film, the main genres seem to be action and sci-fi.
This is shown throughout the trailer due to a number of different factors, such
as the font used for the captions which may depict elements of the sci-fi genre,
and some of the footage shown in the trailer itself which may depict elements
of an action film – for example the last piece of footage we see is Alice
throwing some kind of bladed weapon at Jill [Sienna Guillory], who dodges. A
few seconds before this, we see that the film has used 3D technology, which may
attract more potential consumers who enjoy films created with the use of this
technology.
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