Resident Evil: Extinction

Racoon City has been destroyed but the T-Virus survived and spread.  Now the Earth has become a desolate wasteland, home of the living dead and a quickly dwindling mankind.  Alice, a former operative of the Umbrella Corporation, is one of the few warriors still in the fight.  Armed with new and untested psychic powers, Alice leads a rag tag band of survivors who may have found a safe haven from the infection.  But Umbrella has plans for Alice and her abilities and will stop at nothing to retrieve her.  They fought the Infection.  They survived the Apocalypse.  Now…they face Extinction.

After one not terrible but not amazing start and a less than stellar second outing, you’d think there’d be some major retooling and reassessment of where to take Resident Evil next.  After all, by this time (2007), you had five main entries to dig through and one of them was Resident Evil 4 aka one of the greatest video games ever made.  However, Resident Evil: Extinction proves to be the beginning of the period where the only thing really similar between video game and movie is the title.  This is where the franchise takes a hard left turn into something zombie apocalypse fans might find a little amusing while basically banishing the hardcore Resident Evil fanbase as this is no longer their beloved franchise. 

If it wasn’t kind of obvious, the Resident Evil Video Games never went the extinction of the human race or the desolation of the Earth route.  This is an entirely original premise for the films and…honestly if this wasn’t titled “Resident Evil”, it does have the occasional merit or two.  The survivors convoy storyline could have been the sole premise of the film itself.  Not only does it have Ali Larter join the cast as Claire Redfield, a casting I do not mind at all, but it also brings back Oded Fehr as Carlos once again.  If the movie had focused more on them instead of You Know Who, Extinction could have had a little more going for it.  After all, Claire, Carlos and the convoy are at the center of two of Extinction best action set pieces: the assault by infected crows (actually a neat idea) and the big battle in the ruins of Las Vegas.  Doesn’t hurt to have Russel Mulchay, the director of Highlander, behind the camera to give Extiction more of a grander, more cinematic feel than either of its predecessors. 

Extinction is also the film to bring in one of RE’s, neigh one of Video Games most bad ass main villains ever, Albert Wesker.  Unfortunately, Wesker’s role is relegated to a seated one as he appears to be the head of the Umbrella Corporation in this universe.  I will say, despite his lack of screen time or something to do, I liked Jason O’Mara as Wesker and he showed promise in the role.  Most of the villain quota goes to Game of Thrones’ Iain Glen as Doctor Issacs.  Much like Michelle Rodriguez in the first film, Glen gives a better performance than any of these films deserves and does ham it up a little bit, even if he isn’t being flat out wacky in the first three quarters of the film.  Special shoutout should also go to Matthew Marsden as Issac’s second in command and spy for Wesker, who gets in a couple of clever quips.  It’s kind of sad to say that even when theyre not at their best, the villains of Extinction might be my favorite of the films so far.

But as much as I’ve given credit where credit is due, you all know what’s coming: the downsides.  The end of the world scenario aside, Extinction continues the RE Movie Universe trend of making everything about Alice.  She continues to lack depth, character and is mainly just around to beat up something or unleash her crazy psychic powers when the situation demands it.  And as pretty as it is to see that inferno tear apart the crows from that one convoy sequence, it’s still because of Alice’s Akira level power in which its possible to pull that off.  Same goes for her climactic battle with Issacs at the end of the film.  Remember when it was all about conserving ammo and using your head to survive?  Well the latter shouldn’t be taken so literally.  There’s also the added wrinkle of Alice’s blood possibly being the key to a cure and Umbrella’s been cloning her and running through the opening of the first Resident Evil film for…some reason, I don’t know, it’s stupid and her story is stupid and stupid, stupid, stupid. 

Oh and, this feels like a little thing compared to the franchises ever growing dependency on Alice, where the heck are Jill and Angie from Apocalypse?  Yeah, these two (ahem) prominent characters from that film vanish without a trace and are never mentioned in Extinction.  I do think that Ali Larter is better cast as Claire than Sienna Guillroy as Jill but that doesn’t excuse just…wow they don’t even write Jill out, that would require bringing her name up with a half assed excuse.  No, she’s just gone.  Is she dead?  Is she running her own convoy somewhere?  Ugh, why am I trying to answer questions which I don’t care to know the answers?

Resident Evil: Extinction is actually a minor step up from Resident Evil: Apocalypse but only barely. A couple of grand action set pieces and decent but heavily underutilized villains and new faces do add a fresh bit of new to the mix.  But the end of the world premise feels forced and out of place, even if it is just to separate the movies from the games and that’s not a good idea.  And the movies continuing to hoist everything onto the shoulders of Alice, a character few like and care to follow, continues to keep this zombie franchise limping along and pretty soon I’m sure it will lose a foot in the process and still keep hobbling.

4.5/10