'Resident Evil: Extinction' - A Movie that lives up to its title
By: Tim - aurora - Dunn

Resident Evil: Extinction is the third edition in the 'so-called' Resident Evil trilogy. The first two movies were surprisingly good and held up pretty well at the box office. In fact as for me personally the Resident Evil(RE) movies are by far my favorite undead/zombie movies. So naturally I have been waiting very impatiently for this movie. While there was not a lot of pre-hype for this movie and very little was released on the story what little there was excited me.

Welcome to reality where things are never what they appear. As the movie opens we see our dear friend Alice waking up as she at the beginning of RE:1, wet and with no memory, lying in the shower of the Umbrella Corp's emergency entrance mansion to the Hive. We quickly realize a few minor differences to the original sequence followed by her ending up in a test gauntlet of death. And yes she dies and is then carted off and dumped along with what appears to be near hundreds of other Alices. We are now a few years after Alices escape/release from the Detroit R&D complex and the T-Virus which reanimates dead tissue, often by killing the host first, has spread uncontrolled and has literal killed the whole world. By that I mean the WHOLE world, not just humans but all animal and most plant life, leaving the world an ever growing desert waste-land.

Surviving from Apocalypse we have Alice, the original, along with Carlos and LJ, oh and of course our non-furry friends the undead dobermans, what's RE with out some nice cuddly puppies! Alice is off on her own searching for survivors and killing everything else, including nasty, ugly survivors that should not be left to rebuild the human race. Carlos and LJ have joined up with Claire (Ali Larter of 'Heros' fame) who has put together a convoy of the few remaining non-infected humans outside of the Umbrella Crop employees. As to what happened to Jill and Angela Ashford, well we are just left to assume they are part of the group that has died over the intervening years. Strangely Alice has not been part of the Carlos and the 'Apocalypse' gang since her escape from the Detroit complex as she realized she was under Umbrella's control and therefore was a risk to the group. Yet when she meets back up with Carlos and LJ she does not ask about their, Jill and Angie, not being with them. Hmm, bad hint of things to come.

Umbrella Corp itself, under the direction of Dr. Isaacs, is working on a way to convert the T-Virus serum into something that can semi-convert the undead back to some semblance of humanity and thus override their desire, mind you not a need but a desire, to feed. Hence the clones of Alice in whose blood lies the key. However the clones, so far, are just not the same as the genuine artifact. Hence the need to find and gather her blood before it gets cold, as in dead.

As for Alice, while away and on her own she has indeed grown and a geometric rate with some now pretty impressive psionic powers. She knows that Umbrella is after her but has no idea why. So on her motorcycle along with extra containers of gas and a nice gps and radio system she travels around looking for survivors. Along the way she finds a journal which describes an isolated area up in Alaska which appears to be unaffected by the spread of the T-virus. That along with the destruction of her bike causes her to head to the convoy, which she monitors, to inform them of the hopeful Alaskan refuge. Naturally she reaches them just in time to save the day as she does oh so well and always in an impressive manner.

The convoy both rejoices in her meeting up with them and yet is afraid of her thanks to her extreme, non-human powers. The group finds hope , however, in her belief there's a potential for life in Alaska. Unfortunately they're out of gas and supplies and after many months of hitting all the surrounding small towns for supplies they have only one choice remaining, a major city, namely Las Vegas. Why have they avoided major cities so full of supplies? Well naturally they are supplied with huge numbers of hungry undead. Vegas however is barren of its native undead thanks to huge clouds of transformed ravens. Vegas is also devoid of Vegas itself as it has been taken back by the desert.

One thing Vegas does have though is a nice little crate of semi-converted undead left by Umbrella to kill Alice in order to get her blood. Thus begins the showdown between Alice and Umbrella. During their attempt to capture her, Alice finds the means to get the few remaining survivors to Alaska thanks to an Umbrella helicopter. As for the rest of the ending well I'll leave that for you to discover.

Opps, sorry. When I said "Welcome to reality where things are never what they appear." I meant the movie itself. Anybody ever see 'The Postman' with Kevin Costner? In my book its the worst story ever written, nothing you think is going to happen, happens. In fact nothing ever happens in that movie, and oh what a long, horribly boring movie it is. Even after all these years I'm still upset at how empty and upset that movie left me. Welcome to the story for RE:Extinction. If you think you know how what's going to happen next at the ending, sorry you're wrong. I wish you and I were right, it would have been much better. In fact any ending would have been better, but this movie totally lacks any ending of anything whatsoever. The climax is fast and simple followed by zero resolution to anything and you're left as dead, empty and as unsatisfied as one of the undead. Sadly a cool development that would really have saved this movie pops up at the end, but that's all it does, pops up. With RE: Extinction coming in well under two hours its not like they had to shut the ending down to fit prescribed time requirements. So why not finish the movie with something, anything? All one is left with after the credits end is a hope that part four is already being planned.

The movie itself is still just as well done effects wise as the first two. Where it seriously falls pray to lack of horror thrill is the fact that it's set in exceedingly burned out bright outside daytime scenes for the vast majority of the movie. While this does not kill the story, which except for the lack of resolution had potential, it does lack the dark, claustrophobic tightness that wraps you in so tight to the darkness at the core of the theme, undead terrordrome. What do we get then? Well some fantastic wasteland landscapes including a dust buried Vegas Strip. Huge swarms of undead ravens, a massive firestorm in the sky, massive numbers of undeads some of whom get plowed over either by car, truck and of course by weapons. Then there's the Alice clones tucked up in cool liquid spheres.

Conclusion:
Resident Evil:Extinction lived up to its title perfectly, that I will give it. The world is almost extinct of life. The real evil was in the script writing and its lack of a decent climax and any resolution whatsoever. It did cause my love for the series to become near extinct as well. The concept had great potential to really finish the story off with a great bang. Yet we are just left with a hint and a hope that the RE trilogy moves on with a fourth movie, sending an Alice army global to shut down Umbrella, create the cure and make sure the convoy survivors make it to Alaska. So just where does this movie leave you? Well first hating the fact they obviously watched Matrix 2, and that there's enough alcohol available to wipe our memories of this movie clear too (sadly I don't drink so.....) I will give the movie some bones for the couple of great scenes that were in the movie, the ravens, the firestorm, the Alice clones. That and my love for the first two movies does mean I will by the DVD when released (hopefully as a directors cut with 30 additional minutes!)

Ratings:

IMDB Film Rating: User Rating: 6.9/10 (604 votes)

- For a movie going experience I give it: 2.0 out of 5 stars.
I will say I liked the concept of the stpry and loved the first two volumes, but as this one has no resolutions to it, it leaves you as dead and hungry as all the undead.

- For a technical piece of CG and VFX work I give it: 2.5 out of 5 stars.
While not a heavy VFX movie, the few scenes in it that required lots of work, such as Vegas, the firestorm, the Alice clone containers and the Raven scene was cool enough to put a awesome in between my smiling lips.

Credits:

Cast:
Alice - Milla Jovovich
Carlos Olivera - Oded Fehr
Claire - Ali Larter
Dr. Isaacs - Iain Glen
Nurse Betty - Ashanti
Mikey - Christopher Egan
K-Mart - Spencer Locke
Slater - Matthew Marsden
Chase - Linden Ashby
Albert Wesker - Jason O'Mara
L.J. - Mike Epps
Otto - Joe Hursley
White Queen - Madeline Carroll

Directed - Russell Mulcahy

Writing By - Paul W.S. Anderson

Executive Producer - Bernd Eichinger, Samuel Hadida, Kelly Van Horn
Producer - Paul W.S. Anderson, Jeremy Bolt, Robert Kulzer
Line Producer - Héctor López

Original Music - Tyler Bates, Charlie Clouser

Cinematography - David Johnson

Film Editing - Niven Howie

Visual Effects:
iO FILM
Mr. X Inc.
New Deal Studios, Inc.
Tatopoulos Studios

MPAA:Rated Rated R for strong horror violence throughout and some nudity.
Runtime: 95 min