I realy like the series, of course all sequels some are better than others, but by the end of the great Afterlife it looked like we were to expect the mother of all showdowns for part five. The opening sequence to Retribution is great, slowly rewinding the onslaught on the oil tanker with very flashy visuals and cool music, oh yeah this is going to be great I thought........ then it fast forwards and Alice wakes up in suberbia with a nice family and a deaf daughter and faces a zombie apocalypse at her front door including long dead members of her team. It's similar to Zack Snyder's excellent remake of Dawn of the dead (but not as good). Then things take a turn for the worse and she wakes up in a massive room lying on the umberella logo. The nasty corparation have been cloning and Alice finds she's hidden under the frozen arctic ice in a massive training complex and must battle through different scenario's to escape. Although the movies are based on games, it shouldn't feel like one. Each arena has it's big boss to fight. Director Anderson cannot figure out what Zombies he want's either animalistic flesh eaters, or intelligent Zombie soldiers that can walk in formation, drive trucks, ride motorbikes and fire RPG's. There is no suspence it's just loud and things blow up. There's no attempt for character arc's as the new characters turn up shoot guns and die. There's also no explanation why dead Villain's from the previous films are still alive ( I presume cloning). Massive gaps of logic slap you on the forehead, such as we have a giant licker that kills everything in it's path, but it doesn't kill the little girl. It takes her to it's nest and coccons her Aliens style. All Alice does is find the nest shoot the beast a few times it dies and she get's her out. You are left wondering what was the point in all that?. It's as if Anderson though "I like that bit in Aliens, I'll put it in also" it's that made up as it goes along feel that drags the movie down. It's got no direction and they could have totally missed this chapter out and progressed to the final showdown that the climax of this movie promises for part six. On a positive note Milla Jovovich as always is excellent as ever and although Director Anderson's script is terrible, he does pull off the visual's with some great action, cool moments, and another great music score. I didn't expect Shakespear as I'm a fan of the series and know what I was in for, but I did expect something that progressed the story along to some kind of conclusion. Roll on Res 6:!
See If you like......
Underworld 1 - 4
The Matrix Trilogy.
House Of The Dead.