Resident Evil Extinction (2007) Review

This will mark the half way point of the Resident Evil film reviews, as with the last one there’s not really much introduction needed. So just click continue reading and see if I think this one is a worth entry in the Resident Evil franchise.

Director: Russell Mulcahy

Writer: Paul W.S. Anderson

Stars: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Oded Fehr

Budget: $45,000,000 (estimated)

Run Time: 94 minutes

Tagline: What Happens In Vegas…….Stays in Vegas

Trivia – Claire Redfield in the video games is in a never-ending search for her brother Chris. When the main plot of the film was planned, the original purpose of the trip to Alaska would be the reunion of Claire with her brother. The Chris Redfield subplot was scrapped and the voyage to Alaska was rescheduled as a simple quest for a safe haven.

Trivia – There was much speculation that the well-known character from the video games, Leon Kennedy, would make a cameo and his role would expand in the upcoming fourth film. For a long time it was rumored that the known actor Jensen Ackles would be cast as Leon Kennedy, but this never happened.

The film opens up with Alice back in the mansion from the first film, she is clearly confused about what the hell is going on and goes for a look around. She is greeted with the grid lasers from the first film but manages to avoid them by jumping up through some vents in the roof. After her escape she lands in an empty hospital ward but soon she meets her end. Turns out it’s not the real Alice but one of hundreds of clones Umbrella scientist Dr. Isaacs (Iain Glen) is using to try and recreate Alice.

Then we catch up with the real Alice looking amazingly cool whilst searching for gas for her motorbike. She’s heading towards a radio signal that claims to be coming from some survivors, however once she gets there we are reminded at just how kick ass she is in no uncertain terms!

Soon we are introduced to the rest of the characters former Umbrella soldier Carlos (Oded Fehr) and LJ (Mike Epps) from the other films/film. They’re on a convoy protecting each others’ vehicle which is led by Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) another character from the game. Its pretty obvious eventually they’ll end up meeting up with Alice and they do. In the mean time they run into as you’d expect some bad things in a post apocalyptic zombie world, including some really well done crazy killer crows.

It’s not long before K-Mart (Spencer Locke) finds Alice asleep but she and the others don’t know the extent of Alice’s powers, when she unleashes them it scares the people she’s only trying to protect. Throughout all this we get some flashes back to Dr. Isaacs with the White Queen (Madeline Carroll) a holographic computer model, Wesker is unhappy at he progress Isaacs is making in recreating Alice.

The group decide that they’ll head to Alaska where’s there’s supposedly no infection, however things aren’t that simple and the group need gas to make it there. Their only choice is to head into Vegas where it’s bound to get a bit tricky. Umbrella had already found where Alice was by tracking her when her powers began to show.

Once in Vegas all hell breaks lose as Umbrella send a whole crate of nasty and damn quick zombies to takes out the group. Alaska is off the cards once the chaos has stopped as the group decide to take down Umbrella and stop them once and for all, as if that’s going to work there’s another three films yet.

All this leads to a pretty cool scene with Carlos and the group as they break into the facility. Once again the ending is very “Resident Evily” as Alice battles a big bad Dr Isaacs who has injected himself with a modified T-Virus to become a massive beast, then as usual we’re led to a scene with Alice setting up another sequel.

The Good

• Obviously Milla Jovovich kicks ass again but the whole desert warriors look is Alice’s coolest to date even if it’s her most covered up.
• The realisation of Alice’s power is well done.
• Creepy killer crow beasts.
• Iain Glen‘s Dr. Issacs is a horrible bastard.
• It’s great to see the reintroduction of Carlos and LJ but where the hell is Jill?
• Alice answering the radio signal at the start is probably my favourite scene to date in this franchise of films.
• I like Alice talking through and updating us on what happened in last film and kind of what happened in between.

The Bad

• I wish there was more of Wesker, I know he takes on a bigger role over the next few films but I’d have liked to see a bit more of him.
• Didn’t really care about some of the smaller characters dying it’s a pity they didn’t make them more likable.
• Are the endings being formulaic? Alice kills a big bad then we’re greeted with a scene showing us there’ll be a sequel.

I think this is a decent entry for the Resident Evil films, however it lacks a little bit when compared to the first two entries. It’s a shame as the post apocalyptic world they’ve created is really well done along with Alice looking as cool as she’s ever looked, it gives a great impression of just how messed up things are. If you liked the first two you should enjoy this one as well but as I said it’s not quite as good.

Overall Score – 6.5/10