“Resident Evil 5: Because Zombies Weren’t Tired Enough Yet”
By the time Resident Evil: Retribution clawed its way into theaters in 2012, the franchise had mutated beyond recognition. What started as a claustrophobic horror story about scientists and zombies had become a high-gloss, slow-motion Cirque du Stupide. Director Paul W.S. Anderson clearly decided subtlety was for people who didn’t own a 3D camera.
This fifth installment features Milla Jovovich running through various simulations, shooting clones, fighting her friends, fighting her clones, and occasionally fighting logic itself. It’s less a movie and more a $240 million cutscene that forgot to end.
“Previously on Resident Evil: Everything Blew Up Again”
The film opens with a slow-motion reverse montage of explosions and acrobatics, because apparently the only thing Anderson loves more than Milla Jovovich is Milla Jovovich in slow motion. Alice, our endlessly cloned heroine, is captured by the Umbrella Corporation—again. She wakes up in a giant underwater facility, which is basically a mall food court filled with zombies.
From there, the “plot” unfolds like a child describing a video game they only half remember: there’s Tokyo, there’s Moscow, there’s a fake suburb, and there are clones everywhere. Alice fights her way through it all like a one-woman Cirque du Soleil act who forgot the show had an intermission.
And yes, Paul W.S. Anderson wrote and directed this himself. It shows.
“The Umbrella Corporation: Still the Dumbest Company on Earth”
Let’s talk about Umbrella, the most consistently terrible organization in cinematic history. This is a company that unleashed a zombie apocalypse, destroyed the world, and still managed to maintain enough funding to build an underwater fortress in Russia. Imagine being so evil you bankrupt humanity and still have a functioning HR department.
In Retribution, Umbrella has been taken over by the Red Queen, a homicidal AI that somehow manages to be both omnipotent and incompetent. She spends most of the movie trying to kill Alice, which would be impressive if Alice didn’t dodge bullets like she’s auditioning for The Matrix: Midlife Crisis Edition.
“Milla Jovovich vs. Physics (and Common Sense)”
Milla Jovovich has now played Alice so many times that she could probably reload a pistol blindfolded while reading the script aloud—though that might improve the dialogue. She spends the movie running, flipping, shooting, and glaring at CGI monsters, all while wearing a tactical catsuit tighter than the plot.
Alice has been everything in this series: superhuman, human again, cloned, de-cloned, possibly divine. At this point, she’s basically Jesus with a grenade launcher. Her personality has all the depth of a damp floor tile, but to be fair, that’s because every other character speaks like they’re reading cue cards underwater.
The only thing scarier than the monsters in Retribution is the fact that Jovovich somehow manages to make this insanity look cool.
“The Supporting Cast: A Parade of the Undead (Actors)”
This film brings back half the franchise’s graveyard of characters—literally. People who died in earlier movies return as clones because, apparently, death in the Resident Evil universe is just an inconvenience.
Michelle Rodriguez is back as both Good Rain and Evil Rain, which sounds like a bad weather forecast. She gets to play dual personalities: the cheerful one who wants to save kids, and the other who’s juiced up on a parasite and punches people into paste. Both are equally confused about why they’re here.
Li Bingbing appears as Ada Wong, wearing an evening gown in a Siberian death facility, because practicality died in this franchise long ago. She’s mysterious, she’s sexy, and she delivers her dialogue like she’s still buffering.
Sienna Guillory returns as Jill Valentine, now brainwashed and accessorized with a glowing bug on her chest, which apparently doubles as both mind-control device and fashion statement. She spends the entire movie scowling like she just realized she signed a multi-picture contract.
And then there’s Leon S. Kennedy, played by Johann Urb—a man whose expression suggests he’s perpetually trying to remember if he left the stove on.
“Action Scenes Brought to You by Slow Motion and SponCon”
If Resident Evil: Retribution has a religion, it’s worship of slow-motion combat. Every bullet, kick, and hair flip gets its own dramatic pause, as if the movie’s afraid you might blink and miss the product placement on Alice’s boots.
There’s a fight in simulated Tokyo, another in fake Moscow, and one in an American suburb that looks like it was decorated by IKEA. Zombies get shot, monsters get decapitated, and at no point does the camera stop spinning long enough for you to remember what’s going on.
Still, the action choreography is occasionally impressive. Paul W.S. Anderson directs violence like a man who has spent years studying Call of Duty cutscenes. If you turn off your brain and imagine this is all a fever dream from your PlayStation 2, it’s actually kind of fun.
“The Plot: A Russian Doll of Nonsense”
The film’s structure resembles a nesting doll made entirely of confusion. Alice moves from one simulated environment to another, fighting old friends and new enemies who are sometimes the same people. There’s a deaf child who may or may not be real. There’s cloning, brainwashing, parasites, and something about Wesker pretending to be a good guy for once.
By the time the group escapes through a snow-covered submarine dock, you’ll be wondering if this is still Resident Evilor if Anderson just started filming his own dreams after a Red Bull overdose.
The final scenes take place at the White House—because why not? Wesker injects Alice with the T-virus again (third time’s the charm), and we’re told humanity’s last stand will take place on the roof, surrounded by a CGI army of monsters. It’s meant to be epic. It looks like a PlayStation loading screen.
“Dialogue So Bad It Should Be Classified as a Biohazard”
Let’s take a moment to honor the screenwriting. Paul W.S. Anderson crafts dialogue like a man who’s never heard two humans speak before. Lines like “The Red Queen is controlling everything!” and “We must reach the simulation before the facility floods!” are delivered with the emotional intensity of a weather report.
Characters introduce themselves like Pokémon: “Leon S. Kennedy, special forces.” “Ada Wong, former Umbrella operative.” “Barry Burton, guy with a gun.”
It’s all exposition and no expression—like watching Siri try to explain Inception.
“Visual Effects: Crisp, Clean, and Completely Detached from Reality”
If you saw this in 3D, congratulations—you paid extra to have CGI gore launched directly at your retinas. To be fair, Retribution’s visuals are often stunning. The sets gleam, the lighting pops, and the slow-motion glass shards could probably cut diamonds.
But none of it means anything. The movie looks like a luxury video game trailer stretched to two hours. It’s so polished you could eat off it, though you’d probably choke on the lack of story.
“Final Thoughts: A Franchise That Forgot What Fear Feels Like”
Resident Evil: Retribution is not a horror movie. It’s a two-hour demo reel for leather jackets, slow-motion bullets, and Milla Jovovich’s ability to look majestic while defying physics. It’s an action ballet set in a universe where logic has long since been eaten by zombies.
Yes, it’s flashy. Yes, it’s occasionally entertaining. But it’s also completely hollow—like watching someone play with action figures on a very expensive green screen.
The irony is that the film’s title, Retribution, promises some sort of payback. Instead, what we get is cinematic déjà vu: the same fights, the same clones, the same post-apocalyptic runway walks.
Final Rating: 2 Out of 5 Laser-Grid Death Traps
Visually gorgeous, narratively brain-dead, and unintentionally hilarious, Resident Evil: Retribution is the cinematic equivalent of a zombie—shiny on the outside, rotting on the inside, and somehow still lurching toward another sequel.
It’s not the apocalypse—it’s just another day at the Umbrella Corporation.
