Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
Directed by: Russell Mulcahy
Premise: The third film in the Resident Evil franchise. Years after the events of the previous film, the world has been overrun by the zombie virus and a group of survivors in the Nevada desert attempt to find transportation to Alaska while a corporate scientist performs experiments in an underground bunker.
What Works: Based on a video game, Resident Evil: Extinction follows along the same lines as the previous films, mixing gunfights and chase scenes with bloody violence. The film has a steady stream of jump scares that are mostly effectively staged.
What Doesn’t: This Resident Evil falls far below the bar set by films like Land of the Dead. Even those who liked the first two films, which were not particularly good, will find this film wanting. There are a lot of holes between Extinction and the previous Resident Evil installments. Alice (Milla Jovovich) suddenly has telepathic powers and the ending of the previous film does not match up the opening of this film. With no atmosphere and little tension, Resident Evil: Extinction isn’t scary and its action sequences are not very well done. The chases and fights are chaotic and don’t make much sense and the action keeps coming with no logic or reason. The characters in the film are not very interesting and are underdeveloped. Amusingly, most of them are twenty-somethings who look more like Victoria’s Secret models than ragtag survivors of a zombie apocalypse. The film draws liberally from The Road Warrior and George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead as well as Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and as a result the film is a patchwork of rehashed scenes that are far inferior to the original presentations.
Bottom Line: Resident Evil: Extinction is a lousy film, failing even to make it as light popcorn entertainment. Viewers would be better served by re-screening The Road Warrior or Day of the Dead than watching this lazy rehash.
Episode: #158 (September 23, 2007)