ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The Movie Diorama Maybe I'm getting softer. Or maybe this franchise has numbed the critiquing cortex in my brain...yes, it's definitely that. The more times I watch this chapter, the more I'm finding it to be a guilty pleasure. Don't get me wrong, it's still bad and just has the odious whiff of Paul W.S. Anderson. Poor and utterly cheesy dialogue blended with the occasional bad CGI and 3D gimmicky nonsense. The plot is so convoluted that everyone is being brought back as clones or are somehow still alive. I don't know...I just go with it now. However, despite all this I do find enjoyment in the small crevices. Those cracks being the musical score (which is the best in the series by far) and the supporting characters that actually have a tiny bit more personality. Ada Wong and Leon Kennedy's actors have less range than a ticking metronome, but reintroducing past characters felt rather nostalgic. Visual effects have improved dramatically. Milla Jovovich keeps on increasing her "badassery". The final fight scene is the best choreographed action sequence in the series. The editing was abysmal but watching Michelle Rodriguez annihilate two guys in hand-to-hand combat felt satisfying to watch. Retribution went for full on action with sci-fi traits, and to be honest I'm on board now. This franchise has ended me, plus I'm slightly drunk so there...cheers! One more to go!!

blrnani From the opening credits, which show the immediate continuation of the previous film (but in reverse) onwards this feels like watching a videogame that some other unknown person (or perhaps a machine) is playing. Consequently it feels entirely contrived and there is no viewer involvement at any level, as it lacks both the structure and character development of a film story or the participatory element of a videogame one is playing oneself. It has got to the point where there are so many manufactured and or rebooted versions of the Alice figure and other participants that the entire series has lost any meaningful connection for the audience, despite the director's attempt to persuade us otherwise, as the multi-rebooted Alice decides to protect a child who was manufactured for the role of daughter to a manufactured suburban version of her. Basically, with all this cloning, anybody can be destroyed and brought back to serve a plotline that is becoming increasingly absurd. And we all know that clones aren't the real thing, but likely to be programmed by Umbrella, or the Red Queen, or Wesker, to serve some nefarious purpose that I have lost interest in knowing about.

Jackson Booth-Millard The film series based on the survival horror video games has been mixed, the first film is great, the second is crap, the third is alright and so is the fourth, I expected the same reaction to this fifth instalment, directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (Mortal Kombat, AVP: Alien vs. Predator, Death Race, Pompeii). Basically it picks up straight after the events of the previous film, the T-Virus, created by the Umbrella Corporation, continues to ravage the Earth turning all infected into dangerous flesh-eating zombies. Alice (Milla Jovovich) continues to hunt those responsible for the outbreak, but following an explosion on a freighter she finds herself in Umbrella Corporation's underground facility, and her former ally Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) is being mind-controlled through a scarab device on her chest. Alice gets her chance to escape when a power failure occurs, she encounters Ada Wong (Bingbing Li), a top agent of Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), it is revealed that the Red Queen of the Hive has been reactivated and now controls Umbrella, and manufactured clones were created to simulate the outbreak of the T-Virus, to sell it at a high price around the world. To help them infiltrate the facility and escape, a strike team organised by Wesker arrives to join Alice and Ada, they are Leon S. Kennedy (Johann Urb), Barry Burton (Kevin Durand) and Luther West (Boris Kodjoe). They have two hours to escape before an explosive device is detonated, the only way to get out is through the simulation scale versions of major cities from around the world, including suburban Raccoon City, New York City and Moscow, Russia. Along the way Alice and the others encounter not only Umbrella troops and undead creatures and evolved monsters, they also encounter clones of deceased allies, including good and evil versions of Rain Ocampo (Michelle Rodriguez), soldier Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr) and commando team leader James "One" Shade (Colin Salmon). These clones were created with only a proportion of previous memories to make their reactions to simulations as realistic as possible, they find Alice herself was also cloned, and in her clone life she was a housewife, living with husband Todd (Oded Fehr) and deaf daughter Becky (Orphan's Aryana Engineer). The team find Becky on the way and original Alice takes her with them, taking the place as her mother, and after all the encounters with the ruthless troops, dangerous undead creatures and releasing Jill from her controlled state, they make it out before the explosion. In the end Alice is met by Wesker in the barricaded White House, he restores her superhuman abilities, created by her mutation with the T-Virus, Wesker explains that they need her as the ultimate weapon to join human in the last stand against the hostility of the undead and the Red Queen threatening to wipe out the human race. Also starring Robin Kasyanov as Sergei, Ofilio Portillo as Tony and Megan Charpentier as The Red Queen (voiced by Ave Merson-O'Brian). Jovovich (also director Anderson's wife) with her vigour and visual appeal is still the big draw to sustain proceedings, all the supporting cast are fine as well, I agree the action just continues repeating in each film, the zombies remain relatively scary, the special effects are well done, but you are not highly bothered by the storyline, it is just cool for the fight scenes, guns and explosions all over the place, and blood spilling, apart from that it's another average science-fiction thriller. Okay!

Leofwine_draca It's pretty amazing that Hollywood keeps throwing money at Paul W. S. Anderson to make films with his wooden wife, Milla Jovovich. RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION is yet another instalment in the endless franchise, and there are so many of these cookie cutter movies that by now I've lost count of where we are in the series. This follows straight on with the last one and tries for freshness with a few 'virtual reality' scenes of zombie attacks, but for the most part it's just incessant CGI action.Jovovich has always been poor in these movies; a supposed kick-ass heroine, she continually fails to have any screen presence whatsoever. As she gets older so her body becomes unable to do some of the tougher stunts, so the films get more reliant on CGI as they go on. This one sees Jovovich fighting villains ripped off from SILENT HILL, teaming up and fighting some old faces, and going up against various unstoppable bad guys. It's completely yawn worthy, with nothing we haven't seen before, and I frequently checked my watch, hoping it would all be over soon. Anderson's direction is awful, obsessed with flashy slow motion which looks like a teenage boy was directing.Realising just how poor and plot less these films have become, Anderson tries desperately to draw in old and new fans alike. So we get a Chinese character (Li Bingbing) for Asian audiences, plus the return of Michelle Rodriguez and Colin Salmon after they died in the first film. Sadly, Salmon only makes a brief cameo, although Rodriguez has more to work with and seems to be the toughest out of all of them. Jovovich is a bore, but her acting is sublime in comparison to the excruciating Sienna Guillory, who gives the most wooden line readings I've ever heard. This is a dud all round.