It’s the holiday dedicated to the most incorrigible cop of the “Resident Evil” universe.
As this is her special day, we’ll set aside our lingering confusion and disappointment at how she has long, blonde hair in “Resident Evil: Retribution,” and at how she is apparently … a BAD GUY!? Fighting Alice?! Somewhere along the line, those movies lost me …
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.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 