RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION (2007)

RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION (2007)

Tagline: The Extinction Is Coming...

(Action, Sci-Fi, There Is However…A Small Problem) [R]

Good thing we like a challenge.

In this one, the world has started to decay and a lot of the natural resources have dried up and there is a shortage of nearly everything. Small bands of survivors around the planet exist and one of them is led by Claire Redfield. The goal is for the group to continue to move along the roads finding food and gas for survival and most of all avoiding big cities because they have been overrun by the undead. Alice has left Carlos, L.J., and Jill and gone out on her own. Her telekinetic powers are developing more and more and this draws the attention of Dr. Isaacs and Umbrella who are trying to find a way to “reverse” the effects of the T-Virus and even attempt to domesticate the undead. When Alice runs into Claire’s caravan and reunites with L.J. and Carlos, she also inadvertently puts the group in danger.  

Okay, so one of the big questions I had about this movie when it came out was “Where the heck is Jill Valentine?” Well as it turns out, Sienna Guillory who plays the character was filming ERAGON at the time. By the way, Sienna is solid in that, but as a franchise that dragon-based series never got a sequel. To kind of replace a secondary strong female character we do get Ali Larter (FINAL DESTINATION) as Claire Redfield. This works out because Claire is apparently a major part of the video game. You may recall if you read my other reviews for these films, that I don’t play the games. 

So outside of the absence of Jill, this thing is very solid and I really do like both Carlos and L.J. in this series so with Alice back all was right with the world character-wise. We also get a bit more of Albert Wesker who would eventually become one of the main characters in the series. So I have to get to the major mistake in this film and that is the fact that they tell us the world is dying and that rivers etc. are drying up. The graphic however shows entire continents drying up. This is problematic mostly because in later films we are taken to places like Alaska and Russia where there is plenty of snow. This seems very contradictory to the world drying up and dying? Maybe I am overanalyzing it. Having said that, at the point when this movie came out, it wasn’t a problem for this film, it became problematic later on. 

This movie starts out a lot slower than the previous film and allegedly a lot of the decision-making for the course of the film was determined by Milla Jovovich (ULTRAVIOLET) who objected to full frontal nude scenes and I guess a part in a script idea that would have made Alice kind of morph into a T-Virus monster. To be honest, the movie was better off with Milla kind of calling the shots she allegedly did, but Milla does have a history of doing films, then not liking the end result. This flick does get more into the human side of survival and kind of battle of the women leadership (Claire and Alice) on what to do next. You can sort of sense a bond between Carlos (Oded Fehr, probably most famous for THE MUMMY) and Alice. Heck even L.J. (Mike Epps, probably best known for NEXT FRIDAY) gets a girlfriend in this. By the way, she is played by Ashanti (COACH CARTER) and Ashanti does a great job but doesn’t get nearly enough screen time. We do get a decent amount of K-Mart played by Spencer Locke. I am not sure if that’s a character in the game or not. We also get a small dose of the “White Queen” who is the sister program to the “Red Queen” who ran “The Hive”. The “White Queen” is played by Madeline Carroll who awesomely has become a Christian and has moved into doing some Christian films and TV series as of late.

The director's seat was handled by Russell Mulcahy who is most famous for HIGHLANDER and I thought he did a great job. This thing definitely has a different feel from the first two films, but out of the 3, it’s my least favorite. This is not to say there were not some cool concepts in here and I liked the characters, but the cloning of Alice and overpowered Alice and Tyrant were not my favorite thing. Additionally, if you recall in APOCALYPSE they stated that Sgt. Peyton Wells would turn in a couple of hours. It's probably the most famous line in the film. I know the virus mutates, but how is it that it took L.J. nearly a full day to turn after being bitten? As a series, if you are going to break your own rules, you need to at least address why. By the way, cloning comes up again in this series and I don’t have a problem with them cloning other characters, I am just against the multiple “Alice” thing. You would think the director of HIGHLANDER would have pushed back on that idea…” there can be only one.”

This is a 5 out of 7. It’s still a great movie but didn’t live up to the standard set by the first 2 films. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF CONSTANTIN FILM AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.