Sep 22 2007
Resident Evil: Extinction
This is not a formal review, merely my impressions as we have just returned from seeing Resident Evil: Extinction, entry number three in the Resident Evil movie franchise.
My regular readers will already know I enjoyed the first movie, and was disappointed in the second. I may be a little harsh with my reviews of these films so far, but I hold them to a higher standard than your average run of the mill zombie movie, as the budget exists to make a truly worthwhile zombie effort, and while the end result is entertaining it doesn’t really bring anything but “bling” to what amounts to standard zombie movie fare.
Spoilers exist below the cut, so hold off on clicking if you’re waiting to see the movie.
This film picks up approximately 5 years after the events of the second, the world has been overwhelmed by the “T” virus, and it’s consequences are not limited to a sudden spike in the zombie population but include the infection of the ecosystem as well resulting in the bulk of the world turned into a sandy zombie infested desert.
Into this mix we throw a bunch of survivors driving around the Nevada desert (Uh, I guess it’s extra-sandy there or something), they’re surviving by scavenging in the small towns and doing their best to stay outside the major cities. Despite the fact that they’ve been living rough for years anyone other than the principal characters wander the scenes like sheep, and must be instructed by principal characters to undertake even the most basic foraging activities (You’d think this would be old hat after 5 years, no?).
Alice on the other hand has been avoiding the Umbrella Corporation by staying “off the grid” (her words, not mine) by avoiding their “surveillance efforts” (5 years of precautions are forgotten moments after she meets up with the hearty band of veteran rookie survivors and she’s ID’d by a conveniently located Umbrella operation miles away).
The survivors are depressed, but Alice has found a journal in the walk-in freezer of a gas station which documents the authors receipt of transmissions from Alaska detailing their “infection free” and relatively normal lifestyle. The Journal is 6 months old, and despite the fact that the survivors have been driving around for years with a TV truck filled with communications equipment they somehow missed it. A vote is taken and the survivors decide to head to Alaska, but first they need gas and that means visiting Las Vegas as the smaller towns surrounding it have been drained dry and their supplies are critically low.
Now Generic Umbrella Uber-evil scientist #34 wants to recapture Alice so that her blood can be used as the basis for a formula to turn the zombies into docile slaves for umbrella (all previous attempts seem to have made the zombies more like 28 days later zombies, not quite the desired effect). The uber-zombies are thrown at the survivors, chaotic and uncoordinated fighting ensues and survivors chase umbrella corp back to their lair. Alice puts survivors on the Umbrella helicopter to Alaska (better than walking, But I was under the impression that the UH1 helicopter had a range of a few hundred miles, seriously short of the 2000 some odd to Anchorage, but oh well).
What follows is another boss-fight with the mutated uber-scientist (best not to ask) and when she’s inevitably victorious Alice has an entire Umbrella facility at her disposal (including the cooperation of the computer system) and roughly several hundred Alice-clones with which to challenge the other umbrella corp shelters around the world.
The movie entertained, but less than the second film and substantially less than the first. I was disappointed, but only about as much as I expected to be.
Highest grossing zombie franchise ever, or so I hear.
Sounds like a good movie to me.
“Despite the fact that they’ve been living rough for years anyone other than the principal characters wander the scenes like sheep”
That drove me damn near insane. Add onto that the utter lack of ammo conservation that one would want to exibit in such a crisis made me feel like this movie was just thrown together for the profits.
I was disappointed that Oded Fehr died as I am a huge fan of the RE games. I do have to admit that he went out like a Grade A badass though.
Piet: Meh… Always happy to see a zombie movie, particularly one with a budget, but a GREAT zombie movie with a budget would be preferred.
Grifter: Yep, the sheep thing drove me nuts, the guy with the Desert Eagle irritated me (5 years and you’re still finding ammo for that thing?), shooting at the birds irritated me (nice, don’t forget to shoot at the mosquitos later), and the fact that despite these people having fought the zombies for 5 years they lack any sort of cohesion when dealing with the zombies, it’s all brand new.
Other than that, not bad… and yeah, Oded had a fitting final scene.