Solid Block of Ise

Resident Evil: Extinction

Action/Horror/Scifi from 2007 starring Milla Jovovich.

—

In the third installment of the Resident Evil-franchise we again get to familiarize ourselves with the heroine Alice (Jovovich). This time it’s really bad. The events of the previous film didn’t stop the T-virus from spreading, and it not only infected most of the human population of the world (turning them into dangerous zombies) it also killed the forests, nature, infected animals and generally wreaked havoc on our planet. The world as we know it is gone, replaced with a merciless desert eating away at what little natural resources are left. Alice maintains a day-to-day life until she gets reunited with other survivors of the Raccoon City-massacre in the previous film, and they decide to head for Alaska where supposedly there are more survivors. The remnants of the Umbrella Corporation have other plans in mind however…

—

I’m not really the target-audience for movies of this kind. I have a difficult time relating to the whole zombie-thing, and even though I enjoy most horrorfilms I have a somewhat strained relationship to this kind of movie. In general I feel that the zombie-genre is ridden with heavy clichés and that every attempt to modernize it simply confirms this theory.

I’ve never played a Resident Evil-game either, so I have no idea what all that is about, other than that most RE-fans seem as rabidly obsessed as the zombies in the games themselves.

(relax, I’m just joking)

So, while I had a somewhat fun time watching the first film, the second one soured me pretty bad on the whole concept. The first one had a good feel to it, and even though it was somewhat laughable at times it still provided decent entertainment. But the sequel was a far cry from being entertaining. It was almost painfully bad, and took itself way too seriously. Add to that, it was astoundingly silly in most every department, and as always riddled with clichés of the genre.

The groundwork didn’t look good for the third one. In fact, I considered not watching it at all. But it turned out I was in the mood for something braindead and filled with action, so I relented and gave it a go.

Surprise, surprise. It wasn’t as bad as I expected. Sure, it won’t win any awards for… well… pretty much anything, but it was pretty solid entertainment, and I didn’t yawn or check my watch a single time. Admittedly this also suffers from a lot of tired clichés, and Russell Mulcahy (yes, THE Russell Mulcahy, of Highlander-fame) falls pretty heavy for the temptation of using old by-the-book techniques to scare the viewer. The costumes are bordering on silly, and I always find it a bit amusing in movies of this kind how the hot chicks always have perfect makeup despite having spent years wandering the desert.

But for all it’s drawbacks this movie somehow works. A lot of people complained about a perceived lack of action, but I thought it was fine. I don’t really like movies who try to cover a thin plot or crappy acting by shoveling lots of action-sequences over the viewer, and I felt that this movie was somewhat balanced. Plus, the whole Zombies Meets Mad Max In The Desert-concept was interesting. I’ve always liked post-apocalyptic movies, and this fit the bill fine.

All in all, I’d say this is the best of the three movies so far. Which means it’s pretty mediocre, but hey - it wasn’t meant to be another Citizen Kane or something. Think of it as entertainment for teenage guys. And Milla has nice legs.

+ Desert
+ Milla Jovovich
+ Not too silly zombies
+ Guns, Guns, Guns
+ Lots of sand
+ Las Vegas buried in sand
+ Action
+ Weird ending
+ Slightly more character development than previous movies

- What’s with the ridiculous boss in the end of every movie?
- Tired dialogue
- Wooden acting
- Predictable plot
- Lots of genre-clichés, i.e. groups splitting up then getting killed off one at a time, monsters jumping out of closets, etc.

License

This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 Sweden License.