Resident Evil: Extinction (DVD)

Resident Evil: Extinction (DVD)
Far from extinct, this flick proves there's still life in the old zombies yet
By:stacilayne
Updated: 12-30-2007

I admit it: I liked the first Resident Evil movie. I have seen it more than once. By choice. However, I am not a big fan of the sequel and I assumed that this videogame franchise would simply be circling the bowl by the time part three was dumped in the post-summer movie mash-up.

 

While I am not saying that Resident Evil: Extinction is going to win any awards — and the ending did make me laugh out loud when I first saw it on the big screen — it's far from awful.

 

This action-oriented horror exploits the further mutating misadventures of Alice (Milla Jovovich), a genetically enhanced, muscular hottie with a head for fighting and aim to die for. She dispenses with everything from zombies to crows to evil scientists here, and she never turns a hair! It's obvious, judging by her reduced role, that Alice will be stepping down having paved the way for other strong Resident Evil ladies to take center stage (most probable is Claire Redfield, introduced here on the big screen for the first time, embodied by a feisty Ali Larter).

 

The movie picks up in a post-apocalyptic desert-world, in which the T-Virus has escaped and turned most of the population into dried-out, leathery zombies. A small band of survivors have left Raccoon City and are now traveling caravan-style through the Nevada desert in hopes of finding sanctuary in Las Vegas. Or Alaska. Whatever. Meanwhile, the nasty, greedy, evil scientists of the Umbrella Corporation are planning on using clones of Alice to contain their boo-boo, and hopefully eventually rule the world while they're at it.

 

More than any of the other Resident Evil films, this one — directed by Russell Mulcahy and penned by Paul W.S. Anderson — is an ensemble. They are mostly new characters, but the always elegant and understated Oded Fehr returns as Carlos Olivera, a former Umbrella Corporation drone who's now fighting on the side of right. He puts in a gritty yet poignant performance.

 

The look of Resident Evil is glorious, thanks to the return of the first flick's DP, David Johnson, and the cinematic sensibilities of Mulcahy — kudos to the heavens there's still a director out there who believes in making a movie that looks like a movie and not a shaky home video.

 

The real desert locations are used to their best advantage, and everything from the carriage of the undead blackbirds to the scuffs on Alice's boots were obviously obsessed over. It really looks marvelous. It sounds good, too — how can you not embrace a movie that sets its first bone-crunching zombie-killing to Iron Butterfly's heavy metal head-pounder, Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida?

 

If that's not enough, somebody gets stabbed in the head.

 

DVD Features:

 

11 Deleted Scenes

Audio Commentary with Producer/Writer Paul W.S. Anderson and Producer Jeremy Bolt

Beyond Raccoon City: Unearthing Resident Evil: Extinction Featurette

Resident Evil: Degeneration Sneak Peek

Devil May Cry 4 Video Game

 

= = =

Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson

Latest User Comments:
Of course I liked this movie. I feel that I HAVE to like this movie because I've played all the games a thousand times and watched both of the other movies too. I'm not bothered that the movies don't seem to follow the video games very closely because the movies seem to have taken on a life of their own. I was a little disappointed with the plot, though. Maybe it's just me, but I wish that the movie had either been about the survivors trying to go to Alaska or Alice trying to take down Umbrella. I didn't feel satisfied with either of the plot lines. Of course another sequel seemed obvious as far as the Alice story went, but I thought this was a trilogy and the next Resident Evil movie is a separate story and all CGI.
02-08-2008 by boxcutter discuss
[QUOTE=saw6;658516]this was a great movie.and it was the best one.[/QUOTE] Didn't see it, although being a big fan of the games, I intend to. I didn't really like "Apocalypse", and the first film had a lot of good moments, but I wasn't entirely sold on that one either. I thought the "slick action movie...with zombies" approach Anderson took at adapting these beloved games didn't work, at least not for longtime fans. I would have liked to see the dark, shocking, desperate feel of the games carried over into the films, as well as having the plots and characters replicated more faithfully. Sienna Guillory's Jill is good, and Oded Fehr (sp?) is a pretty good Carlos. Haven't seen Ali Larter's Claire, but I'll give her a chance. The settings and plot are a mishmash of the games, but it works. But imagine a more faithful adaptation of RE2? I used to. I did, however, like the subtle references to the games (and they are subtle), and the licker from the first film kicked ass (even though in a lot of shots, it looked fake due to bad CGI). I thought the cab driver character in Apocalypse was just annoying, with his silly gold-plated desert eagles, come on (he almost ruined the movie for me). Alice's fight scenes made me wonder why she wasn't simply named "Trinity" instead. She's just there to add some sex appeal to the series (Jovovich [I]is[I][/I][/I] pretty hot). The Nemesis was just a big dumb monster, which is a stark contrast to the ass-kicker he was in the game. The zombies look good though, they did well with them in the first film, ditto for the zombie dogs. Paul Anderson has been known to ruin a good thing *cough AvP* or two, and he did ruin my hopes of a great game series being adapted into a great set of films. His Resident Evil series, while not all bad, is unsatisfying for fans of the game series.
01-16-2008 by colubrid660 discuss
this was a great movie.and it was the best one.
01-07-2008 by saw6 discuss