Resident Evil: Extinction
Full disclosure: I did not See Resident Evil: Apocalypse (aka #2) but my companion did and assured me that I would better maintain my faith in the franchise if I skipped it. An interview with Milla Jovovich echoed that sentiment in as politic a way as possible, and so I went in, certain that the crux of the Resident Evil series would be as easy to follow as the first one. What did I want from a third installment of a movie based on a video game? I wanted to see Jovovich surrounded by groaning undead, using her crazy combat skills to put them down in droves. Check! I wanted to see the utter devastation of a familiar world due to humanity’s stupidity and greed. Check! I wanted some hard rocking tunes to accompany the final groans of a mass of undead menaces. Check! Goal achieved. In addition, I wasn’t bored, insulted, or underwhelmed.
Did I get anything I didn’t expect? Not really. The bad guy, in the honored tradition of video game movies, becomes a Boss, in the gaming sense, and I got to watch the good guys struggle to find the right button combination to bring him down. Most of the money shots they wasted on the preview ratcheted down the effectiveness of their source scenes by being too familiar, but some scenes escalated beyond the implications of the preview, and that was exciting. Every time anyone walks gingerly into a new darkened place, gun drawn, the film manages to keep you in suspense until the page turn. It’s an unapologetically popcorn movie but it’s done just how you like it.
Resident Evil: Extinction lets Milla do most of the talking, and not too many other folks, which is fine. She is the focus of these films, and for good reason: she’s beautiful, powerful, has seen it all, and for some reason is hiding out, even from other good guys. Her makeup was odd - she had a kind of permanent magazine ad airbrushed purity about her while everyone else was naturally beautiful or stubbly/freckly/ruddy. Heroes’ Ali Larter continues her teeth-exposing, squint-eyed artificial intensity, checking off every cliché in the book on how a Woman In Charge During Disastrous Times should act or speak. If you can look past her (much like we were forced to look past Michelle Rodriguez in the first Resident Evil film), you will have an enjoyable time watching (spoiler alert!) zombies get destroyed and good guys get bitten. Oh no, did I give something away? If the word “undead” is in the script, both those things always happen. But Milla’s repeating crotch shots (garters, hot pants, and a duster, with thigh holsters, people!) give the Resident Evil series a little bit extra for men and women. Oh and Oden Fehr is in this one too, for you fans of the lantern-jawed pan-ethnic type, and he has a truly special moment all to himself. Enjoy it!
MPAA Rating R-non-stop violence, language, some nudity
Release date 9/21/07
Time in minutes 95
Director Russell Mulcahy
Studio Screen Gems
