'Resident Evil: Retribution' trailer suffers from identity crisis

Posted Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 2:22 PM Central

by John Couture

Is it a commercial for Sony electronic products? Or is it a trailer for the latest Resident Evil movie from Sony? Does it really matter?

The answer is both and yes, it does matter.

We have talked about product placement in movies before and last year documentary film maker Morgan Spurlock even made a whole movie devoted to it. We all know that Sony is perhaps the studio most guilty of product placement as many of their movies seem like one long commercial for their phones or computers.

With today's debut of the teaser trailer for Resident Evil: Retribution, Sony takes that criticism and spins it into an effective little plug for a movie that until now I was never going to see. You see, I was done with Resident Evil and Milla Jovovich after last year's disappointing Resident Evil: Afterlife.

But much the hordes of zombies in the franchise, my interest has risen from the dead with this little sneak peek. Of course, that has more to do with the action from the film in the second half of the trailer than the campy "this is my world" campaign from the first half, but still the setup plays well into Alice's hands.

I'm not sure if my interest will remain piqued long enough for me to actually go out and see Resident Evil: Retribution when it hits theaters on September 14, 2012, but at least this trailer got me in the right direction. Check it out below courtesy of Yahoo! Movies and let us know what you think.