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Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)

DVD Cover (Sony Home Entertainment)
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Overall Rating 56%
Overall Rating
Ranked #968
...out of 20,319 movies
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Connections: Resident Evil

Years after the Raccoon City disaster, Alice is on her own; aware that she has become a liability and could endanger those around her, she is struggling to survive and bring down the Umbrella Corporation led by the sinister Albert Wesker and head researcher Dr. Isaacs. Meanwhile, traveling through the Nevada Desert and the ruins of Las Vegas, Carlos Olivera, L.J., and new survivors K-Mart, Claire Redfield, and Nurse Betty must fight to survive extinction against hordes of zombies, killer crows and the most terrifying creatures created as a result of the deadly T-Virus that has killed millions. --IMDb
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Review by Crispy
Added: April 20, 2009
So, since I grew up with a Nintendo 64 instead of a Sony Playstation, I never really got to play the Resident Evil series. Even so, I enjoyed the first two movies. Neither of them could be called "good", but they were entertaining enough, and there's nothing wrong with a braindead action flick every now and then. I might have been one of the few people looking forward to Paul W. S. Anderson's third offering, but sadly the ball was dropped pretty badly here.

A lot has happened since Apocalypse wrapped up. If you'll remember, Alice was killed, cloned, and reached a whole new level of badass, easily fighting off the small army in the lab, even killing a man with psychic powers before being picked up by her friends. Since then, the entire world has been taken over by the infection, and the remaining survivors have learned long ago that the key to staying alive is to stay on the move and avoid heavily populated areas. Hence, our group of heroes has relocated from Raccoon City to the deserts of Nevada. Alice has set off solo to hunt for survivors while LJ and Carlos have joined a convoy led by Claire Redfield with the same mission (No mention of Angie or Jill Valentine, so who knows what happened to them). Meanwhile, deep underground, the Umbrella Corporation continue there scientific experiments trying to reclaim the globe. Dr. Issacs, the man responsible for the Nemesis Program and the original cloning of Alice, has taken on the task of taming the zombies. He believes that Alice is the key to this, since she bonded with the T Virus so successfully. He's cloned hundreds of Alices, but since none of them are the original, they are impure and the serums formulated from them are flawed. Out of options, he sets out to find the real Alice at all costs.

Neither of the first two were cinematic masterpieces, and they both certainly have their fair share of critics, but I've always defended both. Not their cinematic quality of course, but their entertainment value. However, even I was let down by this sequel. Zombies aside, the first movie was relatively grounded. With the newly enhanced Alice, the second movie was a bit more outrageous, but still managed to toe the line. Extinction set a new distance record vaulting over this line, landing squarely in the land of eye-rolling ridiculousness. I have a very healthy suspension-of-disbelief, but even I was having a hard time digesting what was being dished out. The science fiction aspect was switched from '"could be plausible" to "Star Wars". The cloning would be the best illustration of this. The first Alice was cloned in a tank at the end of the last movie, while in this film there are hundreds of floating spheres of water that are holding the clones. Obviously, the tank thing isn't exactly realistic, but the waterball thing is just so cheesy you can't help but roll your eyes at it. The zombies were another thing. In an attempt to up the ante somewhat, Dr. Issacs' serum gives the zombies full mobility, so now we've suddenly switched to the "fast, highly athletic" brand of zombies. Hell, even our main heroine was given an unneeded "upgrade". While Alice was abnormally badass last go around, she's a veritable god this time. There's a scene where a flamethrower is fired at her and she mentally bends the fire away from her. Again, it's just too far off the charts to really get into. There's a lot of truth to the phrase, "Less is more."

Naturally, nobody expected much from our collection of actors. Returning heroes include Milla Jovovich, Oded Fehr, and Mike Epps. They're joined by the likes of Ali Larter, Spencer Locke and Ashanti. In the convoy's early appearances, I couldn't help but grimace because it was obvious that it was made up of annoying stock characters. Fortunately, the most aggravating characters died relatively early on, but even so, it was a bit of a let down. Still, nobody was particularly bad, certainly not enough to hurt the movie any more; plus Larter is always pretty nice to look at. Iain Glein is the main antagonist of this film, and like the others, he's average enough not to cause too much collateral damage, but the character was victim to a healthy collection of cliches.

There are a few bright spots to be found here, although not as many as one would like. While I was a bit sad to see the exclusion of the lickers here, they added a scene with infected crows that borrows heavily from Hitchcock's classic film. The crows all looked incredibly creepy, and the entire scene was well done. Also, the film finally included a more traditional tyrant for the first time in the series. While it was definitely nice seeing the creature, it was kind of ruined by giving it these god awful lines that completely derailed the scene. There's a reason that Capcom limited the monster's vocabulary to angry grunts and growls. You know, it's extremely telling when the positives paragraph is littered with complaints, huh?

Despite this movie being a failure, Anderson has decided that Resident Evil 4 is right around the corner. To be honest, I'd rather go back and watch the events between Apocalypse and Extinction. You could even add in Claire's convoy and her brother Chris, just for shits and giggles. Considering how this film ended, it'd be extremely hard to scale back the science fiction to acceptable levels; and that's really the only way to make this series fun again. Even for fans of the first two Resident Evil movies, if you haven't already caught this, don't go out of your way for it. 3.5/10.
Greg Follender #1: Greg Follender - added April 20, 2009 at 10:25am
The shameful airbrushing of Milla Jovavich's features in almost every close-up shot is laughable to the point of inventing a drinking game to go with it...

We all get old, for sure... and I'm positive that it galls someone who used to trade on her good looks for a living, but having such a hard focused filter on the action to make everyone look "gritty" and desperate is undone with each dewy-eyed glamour shot of Mrs. Jovovich. It's pathetic and so obvious that it actually makes you feel sorry for her...

Oh... and the movie sucked. Even worse than the two prior disasters...

Seriously.

Reviewer knows his videogame horror cash-ins: 3/10
Lucid Dreams #2: Lucid Dreams - added April 26, 2009 at 11:30am
One word to describe this movie and that word is awful. 2/10
Bloodwork #3: Bloodwork - added April 27, 2009 at 1:02am
Yes. I agree here. I haven't liked any of the Resident Evil movie adaptations and the just seem to be getting worse. Avoid this one folks. It's all bad

2.5/10
Griffinheart #4: Griffinheart - added April 27, 2009 at 1:20am
I flipped onto one of the Resident Evil movies and saw a soldier get trapped in a room of moving lasers. When I saw the lasers split (halfway through their arc) into a net, I turned it off and felt better for it.
grain of sand #5: grain of sand - added April 28, 2009 at 5:49am
I love the Resident Evil videogame series, even really enjoyed the first 2 of the films.

This was awful. there was never fast zombies in the games(unless you include the faster shambling zombies from the gamecube edition of the first game..), and they didn't need it now.

I really hope good ol' Paul just pulls a fast one and surprises us with a movie that actually sticks to one of the games (RE2 please?), a prequel to the world of the RE movies maybe? fuck I don't know..

3/10
Ginose #6: Ginose - added April 29, 2009 at 7:07pm
Way better than the second one... whatever that's saying.

5/10
Tristan #7: Tristan - added July 6, 2009 at 8:28pm
3.5 seems almost too generous. This movie was abysmal. I'm really annoyed that I decided to waste an hour and a half of my life on it. It looked like it could have been good. Zombies in the desert? How could they fuck that up. Whatever. They did. And bad.

2/10
Nirrad #8: Nirrad - added July 6, 2009 at 8:35pm
Meh, Zombies in the desert sounds terrible as it is. 9/10 for me!
Chad #9: Chad - added October 4, 2010 at 3:22pm
Decent enough. Not great, but it was a step up from the previous film and moderately enjoyable in its own right. 5/10.
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