Resident Evil: Extinction Reviews

Resident Evil: Extinction is the third film in this zombie franchise, so let’s take a minute to figure out where we’re at. The first Resident Evil was a blast due in part to blind stupid luck, and in greater part an ensemble cast containing, in addition to Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez in her last good performance before becoming that alcoholic from TV’s Lost. The second one fell flat on its ass; Paul W.S. Anderson’s script was a mess and Alexander Witt, the guy they hired to direct it, managed to make it even worse. For Extinction, they’ve brought in helmer Russell Mulcahy who takes another terrible Paul W.S. Anderson screenplay and redeems the franchise by hitting it out of the park.

Like the others in this series, Resident Evil: Extinction is an action movie first, and a zombie movie second. Milla Jovovich’s Alice character could be fighting anything, it doesn’t have to be zombies, that just happens to be what they’ve settled on for this particular set of stories. And that’s fine, since zombies have been done to death and I for one am getting sick of watching them. Resident Evil: Extinction doesn’t need to be a good zombie movie, or even a good horror movie in order to work. It does however need to be fast-paced and fun; thankfully Mulcahy pulls that off admirably.

It’s five years since the last Resident Evil movie, and things have gone badly. The zombie-making virus unleashed in the first movie has since spread across the entire planet, turning the world into a wasteland desert inhabited by mindless, flesh-eating baddies. On the surface, only a few ragtag bands of humans survive. To live they must keep on the move, if they stop the undead flock to them and chow down. Underground, the evil Umbrella corporation still exists. You remember them, the all powerful capitalist monolith which created the zombie virus in the first place and in the past worried more about its profit margins than saving the human race. Now they’ve all retreated to underground bunkers where they create and kill clones of Alice in an attempt to find a cure for that which ails the world, or at least a way to make things better for themselves. After watching her beat the hell out of everything in the first and second movies, they believe Alice is the key, and so they’d love to get their hands on the original.

The original Alice we know and love is one of the few people left living on the surface, and like everyone else she’s on the move. She joins up with a convoy of survivors traveling Road Warrior style, and attempts to help their leader Claire take them to Alaska where rumor has it, the infection hasn’t spread. The movie works surprisingly well early on as a post-apocalyptic survival tale. I’m not kidding with that Road Warrior comparison, there are definitely moments when the film nearly has a sweet Mad Max vibe going for it, or at least a little bit of Thunderdome. Sadly, it doesn’t last and soon those Umbrellla Corporation bastards get in the way, ruining the survivor’s zombie smashing run to the Great White North.

What’s most surprising about Extinction is how tame the franchise has become. The film is rated-R, but only barely. I had to go home and look it up, because it plays like it’s PG-13. Gone is the now trademark Milla Jovovich full-frontal nudity which usually graces these movies. The film is also pretty light on zombie decapitations. Evidently you now only need to slash their throats in order to kill them, presumably because that’s less gruesome than chopping off heads. This would make sense if they were bucking for a PG-13, but the movie is R so you’ve got to wonder why they didn’t take it all the way.

Speaking of taking it all the way, it wouldn’t have hurt to make it longer either. It’s one thing to be fast paced, but it’s another to jump from scene to scene so fast that you’re left with silly coincidences and unbelievable logical gaps. The script is incredibly thin, and there really should be more to it. Pacing isn’t necessarily dictated by running time, and a few more minutes tacked on could have worked wonders for the film’s plot without sacrificing the quick beat Mulcahy sets for it. Extinction is good enough even as it is that I wouldn’t have minded spending more time with it.

Thin or not, Extinction is a fast, well staged action movie with giddy, creative sequences involving things like zombie birds and a genius moment in which Oded Fehr blows everything to hell while toking on a joint. More importantly, Milla still looks great doing her karate moves. Gone is some of the wildly over-the-top, annoying action prevalent in the second film. This time when Milla strikes her superhero pose, you’re cheering for her instead of wondering how the hell she managed to suddenly become Spider-Man. The script is undeniably shoddy, full of wild coincidences and it often seems more concerned with setting things up for yet another sequel than finishing the film at hand. The end in particular suffers from that, the movie’s finale seems like rush to get to the franchise’s next movie rather than a big finish to this one. Still Mulcahy and his cast overcome all of that to delivery an enjoyable experience, back in the twisting, zombie-infested levels of the Resident Evil world.

The first Resident Evil was pretty sweet, followed by a top-notch sequel. With a third installment, risk was at hand. The film would end up being decent or bomb completely...However it rose above decency, with a unique film element: Daytime.
*More underneath picture*


Most horror films take place during dusk and the dark, mysterious night. Skeptical in creating a zombie horror film in daytime, many associated with the film were un-easy. Spooking the audience with a film revolving around the bright day, panned out to be a success.

Milla Jovovich, once again is Alice the infected human, that adapts and responds positively to the virus. She acquires a new ability..well 2 abilities as you will discover. Due to the adaptation and being under influence (won't say what or how, hee hee XD), she's not as peppy or crazy hyped, as Alice is in the 2nd film. This makes her acting not AS superb, but still above average.
Additional actors like: Ali Larter and Iain Glen improve the film and give it spice. On the other hand, Ashanti and Brian Steele, bring it down to an 8 star, for me (Ashanti is annoyyyyying! and Steele, just doesn't give depth to his role as Tyrant).

The storyline is great with only a small "hole" in the plot..it's not really recognizable enough to kill or give a lower rating to the film tho. Russell Mulcahy had an impressive vision and it followed through (look at the extras and glance at his storyboard prior to the film..wow!). Ohhhhhh the action is definitely swift and better than most action/horrors. Alice's moves are quite stellar without too much "wow no way would that happen!", type reactions. The weaponry and killing/blowing up crap scenes, are fantastic and reminiscent of Transformers..without the "herky jerky" cameras of course :)

See the film, if you like Resident Evil, or zombie films. You should enjoy it a lot. I'm weary of the next movie, due to the fact that it's in 3-D, which is really lame and drives focus away from a film's acting and plot.

Rating: 8.2/10

I had some rather low expectations concerning this flick but since I have a weak spot for Milla Jovovich, I thought I should give it a try anyway. Honestly, it is rather unbelievable that they managed to make so many movies about Resident Evil (the 5th installment was released in 2012, and they are currently working on a 6th movie!). Anyway, if you don't expect too much before watching this movie,  I guess it is still watchable. Indeed, I have to admit it, the whole thing was actually rather nicely done but it was also nothing special either. Furthermore, there was barely no story and character development at all but the visuals were all right. It was also thanks to Milla Jovovich that the movie didn't fail completely. Indeed, she is and remains really badass in this role and she basically carried the whole thing on her shoulders. It's too bad that after 3 movies, we still don't get know Alice a little bit more but, of course, this kind of movies are not about characters and plot, it is only about wall-to-wall action scenes which can be entertaining but, in my case, I always find this rather tiresome. To conclude, it is not really bad but it is still pretty damned average and not really worth a look in my opinion.

We fought the infection. We survived the apocalypse. And now, we face extinction.

Clearly one of my favorite films. After serious deliberation (and incessant viewing), I have decided that the third RE installment is my favorite. The first film explained how the infection started, while the second brought on the spread of the T Virus to the surface. The third has an even wider scope, and despite having the film center on only one location - although admittedly, at the first few scenes of the film, the camera shifted to the locations of Alice and Claire's convoy - Mulcahy was able to depict the devastating effects of the T Virus on the world. Alice (Jovovich) has escaped the Umbrella Corporation and has evaded its satellites for years. On her way through a world now teeming with flesh eating zombies, she discovers that her powers are fast evolving. Switch to a convoy of cars, we are introduced to Claire Redfield (Larter), and are reunited with two familiar faces from the second film, Carlos Olivera (Fehr) and LJ (Epps). It is during an attack by zombified crows do these two groups meet, when Alice saves Olivera from being pecked to death by the birds. They now have to look for a safe place to live (Alice has discovered a notebook which shows that Alaska is apparently infection-free). However, the Umbrella Corporation, led by the vicious Dr. Isaacs (Glen), is hell bent on retrieving Alice in order to obtain from her blood a cure for the T Virus. Far better than the first and second movies combined. The infection is now on a global scale, and almost everyone of those slimy buggers are dead. Oh, and there are some zombies running amok on Earth. I admittedly thought that the character of Alice was going to be eradicated during the first scene, but hey, I'm wrong sometimes. I just love love love the Las Vegas fight scene, with those zombies just biting and chewing and getting their brains blown out. Not exactly the type of movie someone would normally watch after Christmas, but I am not a normal person when it comes to movies. And THIS isn't your normal zombies-getting-blown-and-people-getting-killed movie.

This movie is much more than that.


This movie is






EXTINCTION.

Albert Wesker: [to Dr. Isaacs] Continue with your research, Doctor... while it is still YOUR research.


Milla Jovovich: Alice

Oded Fehr: Carlos Olivera

Ali Larter: Claire Redfield

Iain Glen: Dr. Isaacs

Survivors of the Raccoon City catastrophe travel across the Nevada desert, hoping to make it to Alaska. Alice joins the caravan and their fight against the evil Umbrella Corp.

The third installment, draws inspiration from a range of films like 6th Day and Matrix yet in one hand offers different aspects to the world of Resident Evil breathing life and some new ideas into the franchise, while on the other hand it is extremely unlike the resident evil we all know, it is at times more like the games than the first two.
Examples: The world has ended more or less and the Zombies have taken over the surface is very unlike the games, but the film is full of things from the games, but used subtly enough so as not to shove it in your face. The whole trapped obstacle course at the beginning screams the games (while the set is different the whole designated area with deadly traps is very RE).
The plot is driven forth by finding documents/notebooks again very RE and the Umbrella Lab looks brilliant, better than anything they designed in the games by far.

Now for the plot, it was very simple, but then the film would have suffered from a very detailed plot, what was more important were the characters which were far superior to the previous films, and I suspect it has to do with Russel being appointed Director. Easily Anderson's best writing for characters although it's punch scenes seem to be a little less grand than the other films (the laser corridor in re and the nemesis shootout with the STARS in Apocalypse) and the biggest disappointment was there were no monsters in the film apart from the staple Dogs and Zombies, the crows, while cool don't count and the Tyrant is only in it at the end. But that is more to do with budget than the script.

The acting was far better in this film, and for once the supporting characters were well enough done for you to care about them or even just get a sense that they are real people in a bad situation. Unlike RE:A in which the main characters were planks and the support characters basically were just warm props.

The action scenes were done excellently, although at the beginning there is a little of the shot too close cut too fast syndrome but that evens out in the later scenes. The gore was good, not over the top like some rubbish zombie film but not as mild as the other RE films.

The ending was a little off, and lacked the big WHAM that Anderson usually ends the RE films with, I think less would have been more for this films ending, when you see it you will know what I mean.

Bring on the sequel and Wesker!

Pending Changes...

I have personally never in my life been a fan of the whole Resident Evil thing. I always thought of it to be rather stupid, but that is just my opinion. I have never seen any of the previous films, nor have I even played any of the games, so I was watching the film as if it weren't related to any sequels or games, which is actually not the smartest thing I could have done. Usually when I watch sequels, I have seen the previous installments, which helps me like the film more, and give it more of a chance.

So, what did I think of "Resident Evil: Extinction"? well, I found it pretty entertaining for the most part, I mean, there were plenty of entertaining scenes, including several intense violent fighting/shooting moments, which was cool for awhile, then got very old. I was waiting for a good story to come along. I honestly cannot stand films that just have full on action all the way through, and absolutely no attempt at a story. That is my issue with a lot of films, including this one.

Bottomline, a good film if your are with friends and are just into pure action. A pretty mediocre film if you are watching it with a serious mind. I still recommend watching "Extinction"

The only movie based on a Video game that is fun to watch. ...That didn't sound like a positive thing ;)

Seriously, this is a funny zombie-action-flick. If you've seen the other two Resident evil movies you know what to expect:
A sexy Heroine sloughtering her way to the bad guy, it's fun to watch but of course nothing deep.

The first Resident Evil was genuinely scary. The sequel was over the top but managed to give me a few scares. With that in mind, I was still excited to see Resident Evil: Extinction. However, I was majorly let down by this movie. Can someone tell me, what was the point?

Alice (Milla Jovovich) spends much of the movie living in a Mad Max-type world, on the run from the Umbrella corporation, away from her friends because "they have a habit of dying on me". Meanwhile, Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr) and LJ(Mike Epps) (two of the survivors from the second movie) have joined a convoy of humans trying to find a safe place from the undead. And of course, the nefarious Umbrella corporation is still trying to figure out a way to take control of the world using the zombies but since there's not much of a world left, why would they want to?

Character development is nil - so many new characters are introduced - but we don't learn anything about them that when they're inevitably killed, so what, who cares.

Resident Evil: Extinction isn't scary and it doesn't offer anything new, preferring instead to wander aimlessly through the desert and give us more fights with zombie dogs.

At the end, my only question, aside from why they made this movie, is how Alice's t-shirt manages to stay so clean in the harsh elements of the desert. A sorry state of affairs indeed. If it weren't for Oded Fehr this movie would only rate a 2 and that's for the visual effects and make-up.

This latest sequel was entertaining, but I don't think it quite meets up with its previous siblings. I don't play the game so I don't know if they strayed away into a new storyline, but it seemed that way when I watched the movie.

In this one Milla has even more powers to kick Zombie butt. She lets loose on the zombies with a vengence that action junkies will love. Las Vegas was interesting to see in this future version. One of my pet peeves in this one is how all these zombies got to Vegas in the first place. It was like they were dieing, cloning, and coming back for more Milla.

If you liked the first to editions of this franchise, you will like this one also. It has a lot of action that is high octane. The zombie death count is quite high in this one. You may want to keep the little ones at home if they haven't watched the previous Resident Evil movies.

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