Resident Evil: Extinction

I'm confused. Extinction comes after Apocalypse? What are they going to do for the 4th one- Resident Evil: The Big Bang? I guess it doesn't really matter. I'm sure it will just feature a bunch of people fighting yet another vast army of zombies. Why is it that these brainless lumbering animals are able to remain quiet until someone is right in front of them? Oh, that's right, so mediocre film makers who have no other way of frightening an audience can create scary moments. If you haven't been able to tell so far, I didn't much care for this movie.

Just a little background. In the first movie, a virus has escaped in an underground base owned by the Umbrella Corporation. A team is sent in and they discover Alice, a woman who has no recollection of who she is. By the end of the movie we learn that the virus has escaped the base and has spread to New Yor...er...I mean Racoon City. For the second movie, the entire city is sealed off, and Alice is stuck inside. She gets together a band of survivors, and after a series of useless plot-lines that add needless complexity, they escape. We find out at the end, however, that Alice is some sort of project by the Umbrella corporation to combat the zombies, and she may even contain a cure.

Extinction finds Alice alone on the road. The epidemic has reached a global scale, and now there's only isolated groups of survivors. This includes the last remnants of the Umbrella Corporation beneath the Nevada desert. They are running experiments trying to come up with a new Alice to cure the zombies. Now on her journey across the west, Alice comes across another group of survivors, a heavily equipped group of survivors. Umbrella is onto her though, and wants her back.

The second installment was one of the worst movies I'd ever seen. This one is slightly better. I kind of enjoyed the Mad Max/Waterworld vibe in the desolate west. I guess this is literally post-apocalyptic. I especially liked their take on the Las Vegas strip. The part I didn't like was just about everything else.

Alice (Mila Jovovich) was pretty much all about ass-kicking in the first two. Somehow she's now developed telekinetic powers? I dunno, I guess she's a superhero now. Or what about the simple chain-link fence keeping the hoards of zombies out of the Umbrella compound? Kinda sketch. And just how did that gang of road warriors get hold of a tanker truck in the first place? Don't even get me started on the absurdity of the Lickers (what happens when life tissue is given the syrum).

There's really not much to say about this movie. It had some good zombie fun, a lot of zombie gore, and not much else. It just continues an already worn out franchise. I liken it to Land of the Dead, George Romero's sub-par finale to the Dead series. These movies take what happens leaving you hanging at the end of an outbreak, and quashes the suspense by actually showing you.

1.5/5