* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** Just when did the Red Queen make a FaceHeelTurn? Was she already nuts during the events of the previous film or even earlier? Was she controlling events back then through the scarabs? Or was she controlled by someone else entirely?
** When, how and why did Wesker cease working for Umbrella? Was he kicked out for the ''Arcadia'' mess and decided to join the resistance to make the best of his new situation? Did he leave on his own because he disagreed with Umbrella's plans or because EvenEvilHasStandards? Was it before or after the Red Queen took over?
* AssPull: The series starts warming up motors at this in route to the finale. See its [[AssPull/ResidentEvilFilmSeries general page]].
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** The use of Music/DaftPunk's "[[Film/TronLegacy Recognizer]]" for the first teaser trailer.
** "Flying Through the Air" by Tomandandy in the TitleSequence.
** "Ashita Sekai ga Owaru Nara," the theme song for the Japanese release, is a melancholic, impressively beautiful piece by Mika Nakashima (also known as the J-Pop Girl zombie from this and the previous film).
* ContestedSequel: The film is regarded as either better than the previous three or a step down from them. Most critics thought the former, while many audiences chose the latter.
* CriticalDissonance: On one hand, while still part of a franchise where no film ever reached 40% in Website/RottenTomatoes, ''Retribution'' had the best critical reception since the very first installment. On the other hand, most casual audiences thought the opposite, with some putting it up as the ''worst'', at least until ''[[Film/ResidentEvilTheFinalChapter The Final Chapter]]'' came along and became even more divisive.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: Although not as much as Creator/SiennaGuillory's Jill Valentine from ''[[Film/ResidentEvilApocalypse Apocalypse]]'', Li Bingbing's Ada Wong was acknowledged as being pretty good.
* HarsherInHindsight: The fact that Good Rain campaigned for gun control and is forced to use a gun anyway. Three months after the movie's release, gun control would become a hot button topic in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
* MoneyMakingShot: The ending of the film, which shows [[spoiler:a fortified White House surrounded by thousands of undead creatures sent by the Red Queen to destroy all life on Earth, while Wesker and the heroes get ready to war against them.]] Tellingly, going by the comments on Website/YouTube, this is probably the only unambiguously praised sequence of the film franchise. [[spoiler:Too bad the sequel didn't follow up the promise ''at all''. Only the novelization for the sequel follows up on what happened between the ending of this film and the beginning of the next, and it kills off all the characters, bar Alice, Wesker and maybe Becky.]]
* {{Narm}}:
** The revelation that Umbrella built perfectly replicated city environments with cloned humans implanted with artificial memories, everything for the sake of unleashing zombies on them and using the footage as ''advertising'' for their T-Virus, makes the entire corporation seem even more irrational than what previous installments had shown. One cannot help but think that marketing those miraculous technological wonders could have [[CutLexLuthorACheck made the company incredibly wealthy without any need for bioweapons at all]].
** Ada going to a mission in Siberia in her signature qipao. Sure, it is faithful to the games, but just as absurd given the environment. That she didn't freeze to death in her scenes on the snow is a miracle at the level of Umbrella's inventions.
** The way Leon and other characters talk about Ada being a mastermind ("she has always a plan") is so different from what we actually see onscreen (that is, her being captured easily by Umbrella, doing nothing afterwards, and making clear all the time that no, she doesn't have a plan beyond shooting and running) that one cannot help but laugh. Her short duel with Alice and their firefights against the facility's security forces are the only things that separate her from being a case of full force InformedAbility.
* NarmCharm: Wesker [[spoiler:appearing in the White House as the symbolic president of the remnant world]] is as hilarious as Alice unveiling an army of psychic clones at the end of ''Extinction'', if not more, but it highlights the kind of MagnificentBastard he is.
* TheScrappy: The film version of Leon Kennedy is widely hated for being an in name only shallow portrayal of one of the key characters of the original games. His advances towards Ada are also a subject of mocking because this is something the original Leon wouldn't even consider doing.
* SpecialEffectsFailure: During the Moscow chase, the car becomes an obvious CGI model at points, which becomes especially noticeable once it enters the subway station.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter:
** The Redfield siblings not returning for the film, leaving their fates ambiguous instead, was seen as a bit of a letdown. K-Mart counts as well, given that she was right there with them the last time we saw her.
** Having Leon Kennedy make an appearance could have been handled well in many ways, but instead he is turned into a generic male lead with [[InNameOnly completely different characterization]] and [[AdaptationalWimp most of his badass moments toned down]].
** Barry Burton, one of the series' most beloved characters, finally appears in this movie only to [[spoiler:be killed off.]] Fans were generally not pleased, especially with how little he actually got to do in comparison to the source material.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
** Five minutes after Good Rain is killed, Bad Rain shows up in the same room, but no potential CloneAngst discussion is presented. It was especially disappointing to those viewers hoping to see a HeelFaceTurn.
** A cloning factory where you can manufacture large numbers of normal people and give them whatever skills, personality or knowledge you desire would have limitless potential in helping to rebuild human civilization after the devastation caused by the T-Virus, and in addition it could paint Umbrella in a bit more sympathetic light. However, it turns out that the facility was designed for [[CutLexLuthorACheck nonsensical and nefarious reasons]] by Umbrella, and is unceremoniously destroyed without any character even considering this possibility, not even Albert Wesker himself.
* TooCoolToLive: [[spoiler: Luther West, one of the few well regarded non-game canon characters from the previous films, returns to help rescue Alice, only to get killed off by a rib smashing punch fighting Plaga-empowered Bad!Rain.]]
* TookTheBadFilmSeriously: Though initially not a fan of ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'', Li Bingbing studied Ada's personality and mannerisms from the games and dedicated herself to her role, to the point that the producers considered her the perfect cast choice. Li even endured being ExposedToTheElements while wearing Ada's revealing qipao, as she refused to modify it out of respect for the source material.
* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The Lickers are a step up compared to the dated animatronics and CGI of the first film or the cartoonish-looking ones from the ''[[Anime/ResidentEvilDamnation Damnation]]'' anime film.
* WinBackTheCrowd: Even if its reception was technically mixed, the film still managed to do something few expected: to give the weary ''Resident Evil'' film storyline a real direction. The final scene was unanimously liked because it carried a massive hype for the last chapter (villains and heroes from the games teaming up, a global war against T-monsters, the conclusion of the Alice arc, etc.) and seemed to be paving the way for a solid finale. [[spoiler:Too bad that ''[[Film/ResidentEvilTheFinalChapter The Final Chapter]]'' threw it all off the window.]]
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