Honestly, the Resident Evil movie franchise is a bit of a fever dream. By the time we got to Resident Evil Retribution, the fifth installment in the Paul W.S. Anderson saga, the series had almost entirely shed its survival-horror skin. It became something else. Something louder.
If you're looking for a faithful adaptation of the Capcom games, this isn't it. Never was. But as a piece of high-budget, experimental action cinema? It’s kind of fascinating.
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The Weird, Loop-Based Plot of Resident Evil Retribution
The movie picks up exactly where Afterlife left off. Alice, played by Milla Jovovich, is on the Umbrella Corporation’s ship, the Arcadia. Things go south immediately. There’s a massive attack, Alice gets knocked out, and she wakes up in a high-tech Umbrella facility. But it’s not just a prison. It’s a testing ground.
Umbrella built these massive "simulation" environments. One minute Alice is in a suburban neighborhood in the middle of a zombie outbreak, the next she’s in a flooded New York City or a snowy Red Square in Moscow. It’s basically a video game level-select screen brought to life.
This structure was polarizing. Some fans loved the nonstop pace. Others felt it was too thin.
"We wanted to create a movie that felt like a ride," Paul W.S. Anderson mentioned in several behind-the-scenes interviews during the film's press circuit.
Whether he succeeded depends on what you want from your 3D action. The film relies heavily on the "clone" trope to bring back dead characters. We see Michelle Rodriguez return as Rain Ocampo and Colin Salmon as One. Because they’re clones, the movie plays with their personalities—one version of Rain is a tough commando, while another is a pacifist student. It’s a bit campy, sure, but it fits the established absurdity of the film's universe.
Fan Favorites Finally Make the Cut
One thing Resident Evil Retribution got right—at least visually—was the introduction of Leon S. Kennedy and Ada Wong.
Fans had been screaming for Leon for years. Johann Urb stepped into the role with the tactical vest and the signature hair, while Li Bingbing took on Ada Wong. The chemistry between Jovovich and Li Bingbing is one of the film's few grounded elements. Li Bingbing actually voiced her own lines, which added a layer of authenticity to a character who is notoriously hard to pin down in the games.
Then you have Barry Burton, played by Kevin Durand. He’s got the Magnum. He’s got the beard. He’s got the attitude.
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The problem? They don't have much to do other than shoot things. The script treats them like icons rather than people. For a casual viewer, they're just "the guys with the guns." For a gamer, it’s a "Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the screen" moment that lasts for about ninety minutes.
The Technical Wizardry and the 3D Obsession
Say what you want about the writing, but the cinematography is slick. Anderson shot this using the Red Epic camera system. He was obsessed with 3D. Not the "post-conversion" 3D that makes movies look dark and blurry, but native 3D.
The opening sequence is a highlight. It’s a massive battle on the Arcadia played entirely in reverse. It’s slow, stylized, and gorgeous. The music by tomandandy (who also did the score for Afterlife) is pulsing industrial techno that keeps the adrenaline spiked.
- The budget was roughly $65 million.
- It raked in over $240 million worldwide.
- Most of that profit came from international markets like Japan and China.
It’s a global product. It’s designed to be understood even if you don't speak the language. Explosions are a universal tongue.
Why the Critics Hated It (and Why Some Fans Still Watch)
Rotten Tomatoes isn't kind to Alice. The movie sits at a low critics' score, with many calling it "incoherent." They aren't entirely wrong. The plot is a series of "go to Point A to unlock Point B" objectives.
But there’s a subculture of film critics and "vulgar auteurism" fans who defend this movie. They argue that Anderson is a master of spatial geometry. You always know where the characters are in relation to the monsters. In an era of shaky-cam and messy editing, Retribution is remarkably clean. You see every hit. You see every shell casing hit the floor.
It’s basically a $65 million avant-garde art project disguised as a zombie flick.
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The Umbrella Conspiracy Goes Meta
The film leans hard into the idea that everything is artificial. The suburbs are fake. The people are clones with "uploaded" memories. In a way, the movie is commenting on its own status as a sequel. It knows it's a copy of a copy.
Alice’s struggle to find something "real" in a world of simulations is the closest the movie gets to a soul. When she protects a young girl (a clone of her "daughter" from a previous simulation), it’s the only time the stakes feel personal.
Acknowledging the Limitations
Is it a masterpiece? No.
The dialogue is often clunky. "I’m going to kill you," is said about six different ways. Jill Valentine, played by Sienna Guillory, is under the control of a chest-mounted "scarab" device. It turns her into a robotic villain for 90% of the runtime, which feels like a waste of the character’s history.
Also, the Las Plagas parasites from the games are introduced here, but they’re just used to give zombies the ability to drive motorcycles and fire machine guns. It’s a far cry from the atmospheric horror of Resident Evil 4.
The Action Breakdown
The Moscow sequence is the standout. It features "Uber-Lickers"—giant, mutated versions of the iconic tongue-lashing monsters. The scale is massive. The characters are stuck in a simulated Red Square, fighting off waves of undead Russians in sidecars. It’s ridiculous. It’s over the top. It’s exactly what the franchise became.
If you compare this to the 2021 reboot, Welcome to Raccoon City, the difference is night and day. The reboot tried to be scary and faithful but lacked the budget and the visual flair. Resident Evil Retribution doesn't care about being scary. It wants to be a music video where things explode in 3D.
How to Watch it Today
If you’re revisiting the series, don't watch this as a standalone. It’s the middle chapter of the "end" of the saga.
- Watch Afterlife first to understand the Arcadia setup.
- Pay attention to the background details in the Umbrella facility; there are lots of Easter eggs for game fans.
- Turn up the bass. The soundtrack is the best part.
Real-World Impact
The success of this film ensured that The Final Chapter would get made. It proved that there was still a massive appetite for Milla Jovovich kicking undead butt, even if the critics had long since checked out. It also influenced how later video game movies were structured—focusing more on "moments" and "visuals" than complex narrative arcs.
Actionable Takeaways for Movie Buffs
If you're planning a rewatch or diving in for the first time, keep these points in mind to actually enjoy the experience:
- Switch your brain to "Visual Mode": Stop looking for plot holes. There are hundreds. Instead, look at the framing, the lighting, and the way Anderson uses the 3D space.
- Track the Game References: Leon, Ada, Barry, Jill, and the Las Plagas are all here. They aren't the game versions, but seeing how the film interprets them is half the fun.
- Focus on the Sound: The score by tomandandy is genuinely great industrial music. It’s better than the movie probably deserves.
- Watch the Prequel: You will be genuinely lost if you haven't seen the previous film. This isn't a "jump-in" movie.
Ultimately, this movie represents the peak of the "Alice" era. It’s the most stylized, the most expensive-looking, and the most unhinged entry in the series. It doesn't apologize for what it is. It’s a loud, proud, neon-soaked action fest that remains a fascinating relic of the early 2010s 3D boom.