Blogging my past film reviews from Facebook …

+++++

I’m sorry to have to say it, but “Resident Evil: Retribution” was disappointing — and that says a lot coming from a nerd who really loved this series when many others hated it. Even I can concede that, with this fifth installment, these movies have “jumped the shark.” I can really only give this a 5 out of 10, and that’s probably generous.

Honestly, I had a hard time following what I just saw. Wesker is … a good guy now? Or maybe he’s a bad guy. Are the monsters real, or are they “Westworld”-type robots, or “Star Trek”-style holodeck creations? (There’s a distracting over-arching sci-fi plot device that I won’t bore you with.) Why can the zombies shoot machine guns? Who is Ada Wong? Why is she dressed like Jill Valentine?

This is really just a confusing, cobbled-together pastiche of the superior preceding movies. (And … apparently the original videogames.) Even relatively simple things like makeup effects weren’t all that good.

There were two things that I liked. First, the fight choreography is great as usual. (Although even I know that it’s a bad idea to deliberately wrap a chained weapon around your own neck during a melee.) Milla Jovovich (who is always great, if you ask me) is a great physical actress.

Second, the CGI-rendered “licker” monster was damned good.

Beyond that, there’s not much more to say. If you’re hitting Redbox, I’d suggest renting “Total Recall” instead.