Resident Evil: Retribution Reviews

three stars!

Probably the worst movie I've seen all year. Paul W.S Anderson has a knack for stylistic fight sequences, but they don't even come close to saving the film. The acting is bad, the script is even worse, and the film quickly gets boring. The overall set design is interesting, but the cheap scares are laughable. If you think about it, you just spent two hours watching a movie about one measly escape. A simple blip on the surrounding story of the franchise, 'Resident Evil: Retribution' is a complete waste of time, money, and resources.

To me, the "Resident Evil" film series is a big letdown as a whole. Of the five movies, I really only thought 2 of them were decent(Apocalypse and Extinction). However, this latest installment is better than the first one and "Afterlife", so for me it falls right in the middle. There is some things I liked about it, and others I really didn't like or didn't care for. The story is basically the same as the other films, with a few little twists. Alice(Milla Jovovich) fights the Umbrella Corporation, going through fast zombies, evil clones of past friends, and weird mutated monsters. I haven't played the video games at all, but this really feels like a game. Like she is going from level to level, until the end. The action is good, and for the most part the effects are good also(except when the men mutate and have a four part mouth, I think it looks stupid). I didn't watch this in 3D, and I can tell it would probably have looked really good in 3D from some of the effects. To me, the best part was the beginning and the way Alice and the girl were being attacked by zombies in a neighborhood. But, I thought the ending was a little weak, as it sets up another movie that probably shouldn't be made, but will(can't believe there are already 5 of these movies!) If your a fan of the series, then watch and enjoy. If your not, then no reason to start now, just skip it.

Considering how terrible Resident Evil: Afterlife was, it's almost impossible to see this movie through objective eyes. Resident Evil: Retribution is the fifth installment in the film series that never should've happened. I would go on about the plot of the movie, but it doesn't even have a plot. It's just Milla Jovovich killing zombies which is what all the other movies have been about. Within the first ten minutes of the movie, the movie is already making a big deal out of being nothing but a bunch of convoluted crap. Mila Jovovich has this little girl with her and she's a clone or something stupid like that and the mission is to kill zombies, yet again. We get introduced to a bunch of characters who are really generic and boring and that's what the movie passes off as set-up for a movie. Eventually, the action scenes start to happen and holy crap are they terrible. The special effects looke really piss-poor and everything is in slow-motion. I'm not kidding, every single action scene is slowed down. There'll be a part where a character throws some kind of weapon and then it shows the weapon hurling at the screen just for the sake of showing off the 3D. Then there are parts where Milla Jovovich is doing a bunch of drawn out stunts and it's basically just the director's way of saying "Hey everyone, look at my hot wife doing these stunts! Isn't she awesome?!" The movie is almost two hours long, but I guarantee you that if there wasn't any slow-motion, it would be about 30 minutes long. The actors in the movie are all awful. Never in this movie did I believe any type of emotion was being conveyed. The worst of the actors is the guy playing Wesker. He's so dull and wooden and for whatever reason, he talks like it hurts him to speak. I don't know if that was in the script or what, but regardless, he's still terrible. The movie is also a blatant rip-off of Aliens in one scene. There's a part where this monster is going around killing people, but when it sees the little clone girl, it decides to just wrap her up in a cocoon and she has to be rescued. That terrible convenience only existed because Paul W.S. wanted to copy a scene from Aliens. That's the thing about this movie is that it's directed by one of the worst directors alive. Paul W.S. Anderson has made some terrible movies and I think that his highest rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes is only at a 33%. He only cares about a bunch of self-indulgent action scenes and showing off terrible looking special effects. I know that these Resident Evil films are based off of video games, but that doesn't mean the movie should look like a video game cutscene. Resident Evil: Retribution is every bit as bad as the previous Resident Evil movies are and an awful stand-alone film with terrible acting, boring characters, stupid action scenes, dumb conveniences and it actually sets up for a sequel. I really think that this series needs to just stop.

A quick and dirty review for a quick and dirty film.
At times, few and far between moments that are nigh nonexistent, Retribution is aware of what it is. It's this self awareness that makes the film watchable, because even though you knew it was going to be bad, you watched it anyway. C list actors running around shooting zombies in fairly well designed sets should be fun, but without this self awareness, Resident Evil is not fun. In fact, Resident Evil is a chore to watch. Acting is terrible, music is somehow out of place, special effects are lazy (and about 100% CG), and the hackneyed attempts at shoehorning story elements from the games is completely random and almost insulting to fans. This is simply an awful movie, to the point of being annoying. Constant abuse of slow motion insures that the action scenes lack any sort of gravitas or weight. In my opinion, watching something transpire in slow motion in these days is just an excuse for my brain to shut off.
I didn't like it, to say the least. Gets a 20 for awesome gun sounds and some stand out moments (all of which were in the trailers). Skip it, but hey, if you're reading this your probably won't.

Resident Evil: Retribution is an atrociously awful piece of garbage that even zombies would find unwatchable. There really is no plot to speak of; instead it plays out as a first-person shooter video game. And the acting is god-awful...in facts it's even worse than that. The series is completely bereft of ideas, and is running completely on empty. There's nothing engaging or thrilling about the action or the characters; Resident Evil: Retribution is offensive in how little effort it puts forth.

Resident Evil: Retribution is another entry in this zombie film series, and all that means is that we just get more bullets and less brains. I have come to realize that this doesn't even deserve to be considered a film series since every movie just gets more and more stupid with its story and characters, and I have even gotten annoyed by the idiotic action sequences. This series started 10 years ago and since then we have not even begun to care about what is happening or what is going on, and now I know that this series is beyond saving. I mean it seems like Paul W.S. Anderson (no relation to the brilliant Paul Thomas Anderson) just doesn't give a rats ass if his movies are good or bad, as long as there is attractive women and mindless action then he doesn't care if a movie is good or not. I must admit, I expected to hate this movie before I saw it because of the past terrible entries, and I was right to do so because they make the same mistakes and stupidity that the past films had done. I realize this is based on the video games (which I enjoy) but they just take a huge crap on the video games source material. If you see this pointless action flick, please be prepared to lose some brain cells.
The story follows Alice (Milla Jovovich) as she teams up with other survivors as they still try to figure out a way to take down the Umbrellas Corporation and there deadly plans.
The plot of the film seemed to me like it was written by a bunch of guys in college who are obsessed with porn and have seen too many Jason Statham movies. This films story just doesn't matter in the slightest, I mean they say a lot of words and give a lot of complicated explanations of a virus and zombies, but we just are too uninterested to even try and understand what they are talking about. I have seen the characters go nowhere over the years, and I can say with all honesty that I hate the character of Alice. She has no likable traits and Milla Jovovich gives just a worse performance with each film releases. They don't keep true to the video games at all, and characters from the video games just have gotten annoying, I mean they made Leon Kennedy into an unlikable dork with a gun. I never took the Resident Evil movies seriously, and this movie further explains why.

The cast has absolutely no talent and this is a great example of how not to perform in a film. Milla Jovovicvh has played this role many times but never before has she been so stale and dull. I mean Milla just has no heart with the character of Alice and just seems to have no traits other than killing people, and if she died in any of the films, I wouldn't care in the least. Sienna Guillory is just here for her looks, and she couldn't act to save a human being if she tried too. Michelle Rodriguez is usually a cool actress, but she really doesn't need to return to this film series, it's beyond her. I liked Rodriguez in Avatar and Machete, but now she seems to just be taking any roles that she is given. Li Bingbing just had no purpose in this film other than they need an attractive Asian woman that couldn't act. As for the rest of the cast, I can't see their careers going past this film.

Resident Evil: Retribution is a pure example of how to waste your money at the movie theater, and how to feel ripped off after you leave. There is a lot of guns and killing for the people that really don't care about good filmmaking, but as for me, I enjoy films that actually have a purpose. I hope with all my heart that this series dies soon and they end it as quickly as possible. I think we all realize that they are just trying to keep this series alive by any means necessary, even if that means they will keep adding more and more ridiculous stories to this ridiculous franchise. I love the Resident Evil video games but this film is just another entry in a string of stupid and mindless action films that you will forget in less than a day. Great film franchises like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or Harry Potter are so great because we care about the characters and the stories, but these movies could care less about any of that. I am not looking forward to any further Resident Evil films, and I hope they just end it and get it over.

Retribution is the 5th entry in the series, and it is by far the worst. I was really not expecting it to be that bad, but it was simply awful. The opening action scene is actually very cool and well done, add the fact that it's played backwards with an awesome score playing in the background, it sets up what seems like a cool action movie. Wrong. There doesn't seem to be an overarching goal that these characters are working towards. In the previous film, Afterlife, Alice and the group of survivors were trying to get to a refugee camp called Arcadia. They were working towards a goal, and you wanted to see what was going to happen. There is nothing like Arcadia in this sequel, just Alice and a (mostly) new team fighting through fake world cities. Claire and Chris Redfield (played by Ali Larter and Wentworth Miller, respectiely) are both completely absent, which is a huge disappointment considering how great they both were. Instead, they have been replaced by Leon Kennedy and Barry Burton (both from the video game) although I think director Paul W.S. Anderson put them there just because they were in the game. They could have been any other guy with a gun because neither of them feel significant to the story in any way. We are also reunited with Jill Valentine from the 2nd film and Rain from the 1st, but Jill looks completely different and Rain is a clone (which is ridiculous to begin with). The acting is also noticeably worse, from everyone. When you consider how Retribution was this badly done and that it was released in 3D, there's no questioning that Anderson is making them strictly for the money at this point because all effort to make a good film (or even action film) is completely gone. Retribution shows a huge drop in quality in just about every category.

As has become an all too frequent custom lately, I viewed a sequel without having had the benefit of seeing any of the films that came before it. Thankfully a nice synopsis is provided at the beginning. So, here I am plopped in the fifth film of the Resident Evil series. Mindless. That's about all you can say. The script goes off in areas that don't make sense. The acting is terrible. What saves it to a certain degree is some pretty interesting special effects and Milla Jovovich who appears to look better with age.

The Resident drivel in the room, umpteenth sequel Retribution proves to be an endgame for moviegoers' intelligence. As smartly plotted and executed a zombie series as AMC's The Walking Dead is, the Resident Evil franchise gratuitously works the opposite stripper pole. Granted, it doesn't have to play out like a video game to illustrate its origins, but Resident Evil wears its gamer pedigree like a badge of honor regardless, giving the audience patently absurd shoot-em-ups, leather-clad heroines, and monster mash-ups with occasional short breaks for exposition. It's well shot, yes, but such trappings can't detract from the poor writing, shoddy acting, and obligatory sequel-baiting curtain-closer that seems to be building toward nothing.

In this R-rated zombie thriller, genetically-enhanced undead killer Alice (Milla Jovovich) fights her way out of the Umbrella Corporation's most clandestine operation to hunt for those responsible for the zombie outbreak that's put mankind on the brink of oblivion.

Big budget Z-movie Retribution even feels like a video game, showcasing an over-produced slick looking action set piece that's merely blood-splattered window-dressing for an over-stretched tale that has the wit and smarts of a painfully slow zombie. Director Paul W.S. Anderson gives the bullet ballet a funtasticlly stylistic polish but, by the time the casings hit the floor, you've realized that a femme fatale has just picked up a gun, shot through the floor, and made an exit in the time it took her would-be-executor to pull the trigger. Giving heroine Alice a child has the same pathetic cry as a long-in-the-tooth sitcom looking for a ratings ploy.

Bottom line: Dawn of the dreck.

Resident Evil: Retribution is a very frustrating film to sit through. It rips off all manner of science-fiction/action films that have gone before, relying on cheap tricks and lazy writing to shove the 'story' along, and concluding with an outright shameless bit of sequel baiting. Whatever life this franchise may have once had has well and truly been replaced with a sense of the undead. It's rote, boring, and has an odd direct-to-video feel - at its worst, it gives off Uwe Boll vibes. It's not so much egregiously bad as it is a very, very unnecessary sequel, and it appears that absolutely nobody involved in this project put in any effort, instead content to churn out another mediocre installment in their sleep. Also, the story goes nowhere, the whole film essentially setting up for yet another sequel. If Paul WS Anderson and co. wish to continue making these films, they had better rethink their strategy, because if this fifth installment achieves anything, it's in showing some sacred cash cows are probably better off slain.

Paul W.S. Anderson returns to write and direct the fifth film in the franchise, and "Resident Evil: Retribution" becomes something completely new and different from all the prior films. For starters, this is the first film to actually feel like a video game, and sometimes to a fault, at the expense of the acting. Most of the conversations and dialogue feel completely out of a video game, set up to describe exactly what you'll be facing in the scenes to come. With that comes completely "dead" responding, where character's responses cease to play off one another and becomes people standing in a futuristic setting, coldly delivering lines from a script. The video game plot is also set, with the adventure laid out in a map in front of you. Each world is nicely differentiated from the prior and each has their own challenges, relating back to the monsters from the video games and previous films. The fight scenes are hit or miss, with an amazing opening zombie fight in a hallway following the Japan reenactment. However, the end battle is overdrawn and way too one-sided, falling uninteresting and underwhelming. Milla Jovovich has the look of Alice down, but beyond that, there is little ever added to her performance. The addition of the little girl felt way too much like "Underworld: Awakening", to which I already draw an unwholesome comparison. Kevin Durand steals the show with a very impressive performance as Barry Burton. Worried how they would explain bringing back Michelle Rodriguez's and Oded Fehr's characters, I felt this was done within the plot structures and actually helped build a convincing clashing of good versus evil.

Within the first couple of seconds of the movie it is evident that I'm going to be watching another Resident Evil: Afterlife. While I did have some high hopes for this film, it quickly got shut down in the opening sequence. This movie was pure laziness, the script is that of a bad action flick, and a simple and highly predictable plot. Ridiculous! The acting didn't wow me either, especially from Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory). Alice (Milla Jovovich) does kick ass as usual but it seems like I'm watching a same old re-run.

I truly loved this franchise but they keep butchering it. Honestly, this movie could've been over in the first couple of minutes. I was highly frustrated throughout it all. I feel cheated, but can't say I wasn't warned. I absolutely do not recommend it, even if you like the franchise. If you're up for some nonsensical, empty-plotted action, go for it!

And a note for Mr. Anderson: If you truly wanted to keep this alive you should've stopped trying to focus on adding all these characters at once or even going back to it's video game roots (as bad as that might sound). Improvise for the good of the franchise, don't let the same old story keep you from thinking what it could've been.

I really enjoyed this movie. I always enjoy Resident Evil but this one summarised what it was all about and actually made some sense. Lots of slow motion again though (a little too much for me) but overall a good time!

While the action is cool, the plot is horrible, Scene set up is mostly crappy....and All of the sudden there are German nazi zombies that can drive and shoot machine guns...however their accuracy is worse than the Stormtroopers in Star Wars. Somehow the zombies have evolved from what the original Res Evil had (slow typical zombies) to the fast, running zombies from 28 days later You have to suspend belief to suspend belief. I may have to say that even Michael Bay may be a better director than Paul W.S. Anderson.

I wouldn't say Resident Evil: Retribution isn't entertaining, it's just that each show gets more redundant and nothing new (GOOD new anyways) ever comes of them. Writer/director Paul WS Anderson is showing an inability to progress in either area, with his more recent movies on par with the older ones (I'm not being flattering).

Jovovich in tight clothes and some good fights kept me interested while the rest of the story sputtered along. I can barely remember the story except that these zombies drive vehicles now and have an organized military. It really doesn't matter because the rest of it is just recycled from all the other stories until the end. I'm not going to give it away (it's no reason to go see it if you hadn't planned on it), except to say it sets up Alice and the action to be much more interesting in the next (and possibly last) installment.

The most interesting thing about Retribution is that while they were filming, a number of actors had to be taken to the hospital after something collapsed, and the medical staff had a hard time distinguishing the make-up from the real injuries.

The action is pretty slick. They invested their money wisely, even if they did end up falling back on a few things from other movies that weren't original way back in the other movies. The other thing is the consistency of the movies. There's no depth, mind you, but the writing and progression of story stays consistent.

I believe the consistency in writing is also a weakness. It's the same thing movie after movie. The ideas are old and, with the week 2 drop-off, the fans are starting to show their allegiance is tapering. They even recycled the old "bosses" from the previous movies.

If you're a fan who isn't tired of the Resident Evil Franchise, by all means, go see it. If you've never seen any of these movies or have gotten tired of them, Resident Evil: Retribution isn't the movie that's going to get you into, or back into, Resident Evil.

I actually thought this tied up some lose ends and really helped bring all the movies together.

Like the zombies that permeate these films, this is a franchise that will not die. Milla Jovovich returns for her fifth go round as Alice, the ultimate zombie killing machine, and the line between film and video game has never been so blurred.

What makes this entry in the series so int

Things are going downhill quick. I think its time to retire the franchise. Its clear the creators have lost all sense of what a good movie is. Besides a few decent actions scenes and Milla Jovovich half naked there isn't much here. At least they are trying to include characters from the games ... too bad the script and acting are pure garbage.