‘Resident Evil: Retribution’ all action, no plot

“ResidentEvil: Retribution” is filled with intense action scenes and plenty of explosions, but the plot is unorganized and hard to follow.
In the fifth installment of this video-game-turned-movie franchise, Alice (Milla Jovovich) is back to defeat the Umbrella Corporation and its deadly T-virus that is destroying the human race and turning everyone into zombie mutants once more.
Alice wakes up in an underwater and learns many Umbrella secrets Umbrella compound and learns one Umbrella secret after another. Alice gets some help from a team sent to break her out of the compound, and she learns people she trusted before may not be who she thought they were. Zombies and other mutated monsters chase and hunt down Alice and her team as they all struggle to return to the surface and save the dwindling human population.
The action and special effects are the only positive aspects of “Resident Evil: Retribution.” All action sequences are intense and loaded with huge explosions. The monsters all look good enough to make your skin crawl, but they are not enough to save the film from being a flop. The plot, or lack thereof, is hard to follow. It is unclear a majority of the time what most characters’ motive or direction is.   Some characters seem to serve no real purpose other than to provide gory entertainment, and there are points in the plot that cause questions to arise only to be left unanswered.     The flimsy plot is covered up with the plethora of action scenes, but any downtime questions how and if the film will end or if it even has a purpose.
The acting comes across as incredibly forced and emotionless in any scene    A new character, Ada (Li Bingbing), is rigid in any scene that she is not firing a gun, and her dialogue is forced and monotonous.
Jovovich’s performance is also unimpressive. Her lines sound as if she is reading straight from a script, and her facial expressions are awkward.
The strongest performance comes from Aryana Engineer, who plays Jovovich’s deaf daughter. Engineer’s performance is impressive in every way, from her facial expressions to the delivery of her lines.
Cheesy dialogue contributes to the video game feel of the film. With most of the cheesy lines coming from the team of overly buff, macho guys coming to save Alice, “Resident Evil: Retribution” is full of one-liners that are almost cringeworthy.  
The film manages to cover its awful acting and terrible dialogue with plenty of explosions and fight scenes, but the film’s bare bones of a plot still manage to show through.
“ResidentEvil: Retribution” is rated ‘R’ for strong sequences of violence.