The Resident Evil series of films have always been a type of guilty pleasure for me. I'm a big fan/regular player of the Playstation line of games, and think they're simply one of the most visceral, flat-out fun type of horror/action games out there. I know that most VG-to-movie adapta-tions usually don't turn out well(Silent Hill or anything by Uwe Boll), but for the most part, the transition of R.E. to the silver screen has been handled fairly decently. The original Resident Evil movie was a decent if not exactly overwhelming adventure, remaining true to some of the most important aspects of the source material. Resident Evil: Apocalypse was a surprising improvement for a followup, and the handling of the boss creature Nemesis was nicely done. Based on the trailer for Resident Evil: Extinction, I didn't have high expectations for director Russell Mulcahy's take on the further exploits of the woman codenamed Project: Alice, but I had hoped that the progenitor/grandpop of the "survival horror" genre would receive better treatment than what's just arrived in theaters.
This isn't to say that Resident Evil: Extinction is a bad film. Far from it, in fact. The problem with any trilogy, especially science fiction or horror--Star Wars, Terminator, Pirates of the Caribbean, Halloween, Friday the 13th--is that each successive film in the series needs not only to prove it-self over again, but also improve on the previous leads; it has to up the ante, if you will. The first R.E. was budgeted at $35 million and made over $102 million, more than twice its money back. The second topped at a $45 million budget and made over $129 million, again more than twice the investment. This new installment might do similar business--word of mouth and the internet can make or break a film faster now than at any time previously in cinematic history--but the problem with a franchise is that just because you have a successful name brand out there, it doesn't mean the filmmakers can rest on their laurels and expect audiences to eat it up. The critical failures and rapid audience falloffs for The Blair Witch: Book of Shadows, The Ring 2 and The Grudge 2 proved that not very long ago. It seems that Russell Mulcahey(director of The Shadow, a lot of music videos and not much else beforehand) still needs to learn this lesson.
Resident Evil: Extinction opens with what seems to be a recap of the initial installment, with uber-babe Alice(Milla Jovovich) waking up naked in a shower and finding her way through a mansion. Things veer off rapidly when she is killed by a hidden machine gun trap, and it turns out this isn't the real Alice, but a clone of her...one of dozens it turns out, all created by the Umbrella Corporation, the company responsible for the T-virus which has caused almost every human on Earth to turn into one of the living dead. Alice explains via voiceover that the only way to stay alive--and human--is to stay away from major cities and keep mobile on the road. It's during one of her continual roadtrips that she runs afoul of some of humanity's dregs who are preying on innocent stragglers. It's a fairly lame sequence, and exists only to showcase Alice's considerable survival skills.
There are other survivalists on the road as well, staying together in a convoy led by Claire Redfield(Ali Larter) and Carlos Olivera(Oded Fehr from The Mummy series). For anyone not familiar with the Resident Evil games, Claire Redfield is actually a very important character in the series, the game Codename: Veronica actually being her adventure entirely. It's surprising then that writer Paul W.S. Anderson, who did an effective job of faithfully adapting the R.E. series thus far and now returns for this third installment, gives such short shrift to the Redfield character. Jill Valentine--another popular character from the game--appeared in Resident Evil: Apocalypse and while not exactly given equal time to Alice onscreen, was still afforded more opportunity and showcas-ing than Claire ever gets in this film. In the game series, Claire has a brother named Chris; in this film, no mention of any family or any real background for Claire is ever given. Even with the return of Carlos and wanderer L.J.(Mike Epps), both Anderson and Mulcahey make it absol-utely clear that this is Alice's show--all other characters, step off.
There is a B-plot which runs alongside Resident Evil's survival story, and that is the efforts of the returning Dr. Isaacs(Iain Glen) to recapture Alice and use her blood--a purer form than that of the clones--to develop a permanent antibody to the T-virus: one that can halt the progress of the disease in the recently infected and calm the already dead so they can be domesticated as a type of worker force. Isaacs is a man obsess-ed, fully content to disobey the orders of Umbrella head Albert Wesker(Jason O'Mara) in order to misappropriate manpower and equipment in order to trap Alice. This leads to several tragic endings for some of the main characters; utilizing the Scream theory of screenwriting, Anderson and Mulcahy have decided that as the poster tag line reads "all bets are off", and the wholesale slaughter of characters whom fans have come to enjoy can begin. One of the newer characters--a nurse named Betty who travels in Claire's caravan--is snuffed out early on. Betty is played by singer and part-time "actress" Ashanti. Since Mike Epps is of seriously limited range as well, it doesn't hurt too much to have them play off each other. It was actually a moment of rejoicing in the film for me when Ashan-ti--an overrated wannabe thespian--was pecked to death by the famous crows from the R.E. game. A brief word on the Albert Wesker character as well: like Claire, he is a major player in the R.E. games, and is similarly treated to sidebar status by Anderson and Mulcahy. Jason O'Mara, who plays Wesker, is such a cipher in the role, I can't believe he'd be hired for a sequel, if there is one. He seems more like an understudy, keeping the seat warm until the real actor returns from sabbatical.
I know I've mentioned before that I don't mind if a film takes its time to tell a story, so long as said story and the players are solid. But for a horror/action film, Resident Evil: Extinction takes a good long while to really get started. Mulcahy's pacing at the start is off, and there are so many establishing shots of the desert environment, Alice wandering in it, and Claire and her compatriots looking for fuel to keep their cars and trucks going, that I was beginning to wonder if the zombies would ever appear, or any action would ever happen. There are also plenty of logic sticking points within the film as well, in relation to how long mankind's tech would actually keep functioning once people were no longer around to maintain it. While satellites would of course still be in orbit and more than likely still working, the main systems on Earth would eventually power down or experience catastrophic malfunctions without some sort of regular maintenance. But then again, I'm probably reading too much into this film, which exists as a form of entertainment than an exercise in practical logic.
The film mainly retreads what has gone before in some areas, most notably when zombies attack. You'd think that five years after the twilight of humanity, people like Claire and her gang would be more prepared and more capable of keeping their wits about them when confronted by a familiar enemy. But of course, when the zombies appear, everyone panics, no matter that they have superior firepower. The fact that in the interim between the last film and this one, Alice has somehow developed psionic powers(like telekinesis, the ability to move objects with the mind) as a side-effect of the T-virus seems more like a desperate attempt by Anderson and Mulcahy to give Alice more to do, rather than have her just kick ass and take names in the standard manner. The final fight with the main creature in the picture is uninspired and over too quickly, with one of Alice's clones serving as deus ex machina. The ending itself also does not definitively end the series, as many have been stating(or perhaps more accurately, hoping). In fact, I found it a bit ridiculous, and I can't ever imagine Sony/Screen Gems going in the direction indicated.
Unlike the failure of last year's Ultraviolet, the Resident Evil series has been good to Milla Jovovich, boosting her celebrity status and enhancing her career. There's been alternating talk that this is the last in the series, and hints from Ali Larter that a fourth film might be in the offing, featuring her character Claire. I've watched the entire trilogy thus far, and I'm willing to go back for a fourth helping. But if they indeed feature Claire, I hope they'll treat her--and we the audience--better.
Official Archives of LanceReviews...
Resident Setback
Trilogy "concludes" with a whimper, not a bang.
If you're going to bet on this one, here's the inside track: bet low.
Milla Jovovich returns as Alice--the most serious kick-ass chick since the Alien series' Ripley.
Singer/sometime "actress" Ashanti appears as Nurse Betty. Fortunately, her demise is early and swift.
Mike Epps returns as L.J....a black man in a horror film? You know he ain't makin' it out of this!.
Road Warriors: Spencer Locke, Ali Larter, Jovovich and Oded Fehr make a last stand for humanity.
