A Review of Resident Evil: Retribution

How bad a movie is Resident Evil: Retribution?
So bad that, when I left the theater, my right eye was bleeding.
Honestly.
All right, maybe the bloody red eye didn’t have anything to do with the movie, but that doesn’t mean that Resident Evil: Retribution isn’t so bad it couldn’t cause someone to hemorrhage.
Of course, I knew this movie wasn’t going to be Shakespear when I bought my ticket. The RE franchise has pretty much become brain candy. They’re an excuse to sit in a dark theater, eating popcorn and watching Milla Jovovich perform slow-motion, wire-enhanced martial arts maneuvers.
At this point, about the only saving grace that the Resident Evil movie franchise has, is that Uwe Boll hasn’t been slated to direct any of the films. And after this movie, I’m not sure Boll’s involvement in the franchise would be a positive or a negative.
I’m not going to worry too much about giving spoilers for this movie. If you’ve seen any of the previous RE movies, you know what to expect. Alice wakes up and has to fight her way through undead monsters. The ending is a setup for the next movie in the franchise.
So what makes this movie so bad?
It’s not the acting or the special effects. Those are pretty par for the course.
Partly, it’s the logical inconsistencies within the movie itself.
Why the hell is Ada Wong, played by Bingbing Li, walking around in a cocktail dress slit up to the thigh? For that matter, why is she wearing those impractical shoes? In a post-apocalyptic world, you’d expect her to be dressed more practically.
Then there’s the scene where one of the zombie soldiers is killed by the rescue team. One guy grabs it from behind in a headlock while another unloads a full clip from his gun into dead guy’s chest. While the other guy is still holding it. The guy behind the zombie should have been perforated.
Mostly, though, it’s the fact that Resident Evil: Retribution is a very dull film. There is absolutely no sense of drama or tension within the story. Alice survives. Secondary characters die, but we don’t care about them. We’re never given the chance because they’re never developed. This movie is all about explosions, fights and car chases.
That’s it.
It is utterly and completely forgettable. That is why, on my movie love scale, I give Resident Evil: Retribution zero out of 10. This movie is so lame, I couldn’t even justify watching it on network television at three in the morning. Avoid it, people. Avoid it like a zombie plague carrier. You’ll be glad you did.