Since "Resident Evil: Retribution" starts with a slow-motion battle scene shown in reverse, the easy joke to make is something about how the franchise is moving backwards. Usually it's best to avoid the easy jokes, but this film is such a lazy, uncreative, wheel-spinning debacle that to write a clever review of it would almost be inappropriate. If the movie's not going to put forth any effort, why should I?

The fifth entry in the perplexingly profitable video-game-based series, once again written and directed by franchise mastermind and renowned terrible filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson, has the thinnest story so far. That is perhaps why the 95-minute film starts with a credit sequence, a recap, and a simulation zombie attack -- all totaling 15 minutes -- before the story actually begins.

Truth be told, I was somewhat glad to have Alice (Milla Jovovich) face the camera and deliver a summary of what has happened so far, and not because I had forgotten (though that is also true). Her description of the events, illustrated by clips from the previous films, gives the impression that the previous films were exciting and fun. Knowing that to be untrue, I smile at the craftsmanship involved in making me think otherwise.

"Retribution" is set in a vast Umbrella Corporation facility in which Alice is being held prisoner, entirely naked except for two dishtowels tied to her front and back. Assisted by company-spy-turned-freedom-fighter Ada Wong (Bingbing Li), Alice she acquires weapons and manages to slip into a more suitable outfit of skin-tight black rubber and lycra with a lot of buckles.

[To read the rest of the review, please visit Twitch.]

Grade: D

Rated R, a lot of bloody violence, partial nudity, a little profanity

1 hr., 35 min.

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