Movie Review - Resident Evil: Extinction

The film starts a lot like the original movie and for about 5 minutes it had me thinking I was watching that, until the nice twist and 2nd twist. Clearly someone had been watching a lot of zombie and End Of The World films as just about every cliché in the book from the 2 genres was used. From trying to domesticate zombies (Romero already did it more than 20 years ago), living in a radio station and traveling in convoy (Mad Max all over again, eh?) your not going to see much in this film you haven't seen elsewhere in the horror or sci-fi genre. Clones are nothing new, a hidden research center underground was best done in "The Andromeda Strain".

Mila looks good in the film as she has in the previous 2, they kept a few of the cast back from part 2 but some are very obviously absent. the twist at the end of Resident Evil: Apocalypse doesn't seem to have been used much. There are a few nods back to it now and then and Alice seems to have developed telekinetic abilities as well from no-where (no idea if that was ever used in any of the games having only played 1 of them). There is a lovely old school nod in homage back to the Hitchcock classic "The Birds" at one point during the movie.

One scene doesn't quite ring true. Where their attacked by the zombies in the container in Las Vegas. Now this is a well co-ordinated group who have clearly survived and held their own for a good long time against the zombies. But here they are panicking, firing randomly, firing on automatic when ammunition is clearly in short supply. They would have been firing single shots, 1 shot = 1 kill with every round fired being a kill. The chap with the SA-80 (up on the Eiffel Tower) was happily firing away on automatic with no indication of having changed his magazine. And I can tell you for a fact they only hold 30 rounds having used one.

The black guy who was infected days back when they cleared the motel took FAR too long to turn. Also the soldier had seen him get bitten in the hotel but didn't kill him then? Killing off the soldier (the only other character to have made it into this film) leaves Alice alone to fight against Umbrella and whatever is inside this hive. The ending of this is left very open for part 4 to be made, no doubt this will happen. Generally the film is a little too long to get going and would benefit from a cut of about 20 minutes (where the survivor caravan is established). The action in places is cut a bit too fast to be watchable but the film brings some new ideas to the Resident Evil franchise.