Movie Review: Resident Evil: Extinction
- Theatrical release date
- September 21, 2007
- DVD release date
- January 1, 2008
- Grade
- B
A kick-ass zombie movie. ‘Nuff said.
If you’re looking for violence, walking undead, and shots of Milla Jovovich looking pissed off, you’ve come to the right movie.
Post-apocalyptic zombie movies are a dime a dozen these days, it seems. Some, like 28 Days Later, are effective and scary, largely because they underline the point that the real monsters are never the shambling undead. Zombies are, well, mindless. They might kill you and eat you, but they’re not technically evil — they haven’t chosen to be as they are. The real monsters, the ones who have chosen an evil path through free will, are elsewhere, and in this movie, as in the other two, those monsters work for the ubiquitous Umbrella Corporation.
In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I am apparently the only person who liked the second flick better than the first (somewhere around the middle of Resident Evil, I wandered off and only made it back for the last couple of scenes, which, by then, I didn’t understand). I sat through the entire second film (a rental), and liked it enough to feel compelled to see the third one in the theater. And I felt I got my money’s worth.
Not that the movie makes a great deal of sense, but then, these movies rarely do. The trick for the director is, do you focus on the nonsense to the point where the audience can’t help but spot all the holes in your screenplay, or do you breeze by them and hope no one notices? Russell Mulcahy prefers the latter, which is why this movie gets a B and not an F. It’s too much fun to watch to worry about the details right then. Later, you can wonder why the zombies never rot (we’re told they’ll “last for decades”) and how small bands of survivors can keep finding gasoline years after the end of any production and distribution of the stuff.
The main distractions during the movie are a)the loud noises that occur often and for no particular reason, and b)the odd choice to airbrush every Jovovich close-up in post-production. Wouldn’t it be more believable for her to be a bit weathered-looking, after all? Otherwise, the tale of Alice (Jovovich) teaming up with some survivors of the T-virus, including her old pals from Resident Evil: Apocalypse, L.J. (Mike Epps) and Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr), is a fun ride. Although the movie starts off with a wealth of new characters, zombies munch on enough that keeping folks straight isn’t generally a problem.
The movie is billed as “the third and last” in the series, but the ending belies this, giving Alice the equipment and knowledge to manufacture a cure for the virus, as well as more Umbrella Corporation suits to go after. Yet, since she is not shown producing the antivirus nor eliminating the rest of the suits, one supposes these must be two prongs of the plot reserved for movie #4.
If so, then I’ll probably be in line to see it, and I’ll hope it’s at least as fun as this one. If you like your movie violence of the cartoon variety, the flesh-eating zombies fairly icky, and corporate flunkies uniformly and one-dimensionally evil, this is definitely the movie for you. Get some popcorn and enjoy.
Copyright . Published 1 October 2007 in What’s New.
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