Resident Evil: Retribution

Following the last movie, Alice is captured and imprisoned by The Red Queen in an Umbrella Corporation's underground facility in Kamchatka. Now Wesker wants Alice to put on a last stand for humanity alongside him. With Ada Wong on the inside and a team from the outside, they try to escape from The Red Queen.

There isn't much going on storywise. They put in virtual environments in the facility so that they could play out some of the action in NY and Moscow. There are also clones in this facility so that Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez, and Oded Fehr can return to the franchise. At its core, it's all about the action. The story isn't that important. It's not really a movie. It's more a video game. Enjoy!

PREMISE: Alice. Kills stuff. PLOT: Alice. Kills stuff.

Viewers hoping for a coherent narrative are advised to try Capcom's Resident Evil cartoons; viewers completely new to the series really have no choice but to let the images simply break over them like tsunamis. Despite 2 or 3 pages of exposition, series writer/director Paul W. S. Anderson clearly assumes that anyone rejoining him at this point is so familiar with both the movies and the various R.E./BIOHAZARD VGs that new characters (Ada Wong; Leon Kennedy) can be ported over from the games, and old characters (Rain; Carlos) resurrected without explanation (Jill Valentine, Albert Wesker and Luther West are back; Claire and Chris Redfield make cameos). Happily, I AM that geekish, so enjoyed the merry-go-round.

The CGI FX, which are virtually non-stop, are more varied, energetic, and original than in previous sequels. No more mutant dead dogs, thank goodness, although Anderson remains overly-fond of his tentacles- bursting-out-of-the-mouth shots.

The movie is less a script than a series of levels, as Alice, Project Alice, Leon, Ada and their ad hoc teams are dragged through artificial environments adapted from previous installments, from games (notably the new Manhattan and Moscow sets), from any spin-off that isn't bolted to the ground, even from absolutely unconnected franchises (e.g. DAWN OF THE DEAD). Each setting—all controlled by The Red Queen--has its own horde of character clones infected with different strains of the T-Virus and/or Plaga Parasite and its own boss monster adapted from one or another of the games.

If...and only if...that paragraph made the least bit of sense, then this movie's recommended.

Well… this movie is like a game. Watching this movie is like watching a kid playing one level of video game. But you're watching this during 1.5 hours.

During first 15 minutes of the movie I had only one thought in my mind: "what a hell is this?"

There is no plot, no catchy story like in previous parts. Here you have several blocks and a lot of stupid shooting and fighting without a hint to be a bit realistic. The final fight is like a raping of your mind - too much FX's, too less reality and common sense, it's against everything good in the world.

Actors are great. After a deadly injury a character doesn't show any sight of the pain except in his words.

Dialogs in the movie are fantastic… If you'll write down all the lines of all characters, you'll hardly fill 1.5 pages A4 size.

Watching this movie a felt like I'm fooled - creators didn't want to work to make it interesting, they used CGI+FX+fighting+shooting without everything else that makes movie worthwhile, and sold it to me using a bright wrap.

People were leaving the movie theatre in the middle of this picture.

Hope next movie will be much better.

I was eagerly looking forward to the 5th installment of this series and I am sorry to say that I have been really let down! Apart from the once in a while visuals, the movie has not been able to get even close to expectations. The first 10 minutes of the movie and you will start feeling disconnected from the movie already not caring at all what is gonna happen in the next scene. After resident evil 3 & 4, I was expecting a lot out of this installment and from Paul W.S. Anderson but he has not been able to live up the mark at all. The action scenes rather than being nail-biting, turned out to be hilarious and funny. There isn't a single moment in the movie where you are actually glued to screen. Milla Jovovich looks pretty as always, but that won't save the movie. All others have done a horrible job with their acting, especially Sienna Guillory. I would say that the only reason you would want to watch this movie is if you are a fan of the resident evil series and you don't mind wasting your money and time for the sake of this series.

Alice (Milla Jovovich) awakes at home with her daughter Becky (Aryana Engineer) and her husband. But soon she realizes that she is actually in an Umbrella Corporation's underground facility. Out of the blue, the computer security system shuts-down and Alice flees to the central control room of the facility. She meets Ada Wong (Bingbing Li), who works with Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), and she learns that a five-man team has been sent by Wesker to rescue them. However, the Red Queen sends Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) and Rain (Michelle Rodriguez) to hunt them down.

"Resident Evil 5 – Retribution" is so far the weakest movie of this franchise. Actually it is a video-game with a short story and lots of explosions and shootings. "Resident Evil 5 – Retribution" works better on Blu-Ray or DVD, since it might be unbearable for those who have gone to the movie theater to see this flick. The writer needs new ideas and not reboot the story. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Resident Evil – Retribuição" ("Resident Evil – Retribution")

Note: On 02 February 2017, I saw this film again.