Resident Evil: Extinction

Trashing this film might not be as obvious as it seems. Sure, the third movie in a series based upon a video game has to suck. Doesn’t it? I guess so, but I still had high hopes for it. You see, I’m a pretty big fan of the first Resident Evil film. Milla Jovovich – yum! Zombies – excellent. Contorted plot involving an evil multi-national corporation, man-made bio-weapons and intricate underground bunkers with genetically engineered monsters – can’t get enough of that shit!

The second film was not nearly as good. And it seemed really, really short to me. Less than your standard 90 minutes, but still it had some creepy moments. And creepy moments are the reasons we watch zombie movies.

This last one, however, was truly awful in so many ways. Besides the fact that the filmmakers decided to rip-off one of the subplots right out of Day of the Dead (Romero’s worst Zombie film to date), they also decided to stray from the standard formula from the first film to make something else that made no sense whatsoever. At least to me it didn’t. Maybe they explained it better in the video game, but if they did then shame on the writers of this hunk o’ junk. No way a video game should make more sense than a film.

This one starts off some unknown period of time after the events of the second film. The virus has spread from Raccoon City to every corner of the Earth. Well, except maybe Alaska (unexplained ridiculous plot point Exhibit A). Not only has it decimated most of the human life on the planet, but it has also wreaked havoc on the rest of the animal and plant kingdoms (unexplained ridiculous plot point Exhibit B). The oceans have dried up and most of the world has become an arid wasteland of a desert (unexplained ridiculous plot point Exhibit C).

Alice in Zombieland is traveling on her own since escaping Raccoon City. She now has some kind of subconscious telekinetic abilities brought on by a mutation of the T-virus (unexplained ridiculous plot point Exhibit D). Oh yeah, and there are some cocky scientists in another Hive-like underground bunker who believe that Alice’s blood can be synthesized into a cure for the T-Virus. Or, it can at least it can be used to domesticate the zombies. Like pets, or slave labor. Not sure how they figured it out, but apparently Alice was genetically engineered with certain conditioning (unexplained ridiculous plot point Exhibit E), one of which is a resistance to the T-Virus. They lovingly refer to her as Project Alice. Sort of like Project Runway, but without the catty in-fighting.

Lot of other stuff goes on. There is a band of survivors traveling in a caravan across the Western States. Strictly fodder for the zombie machine. There is, yet another, mutation caused by overdosing on the antidote for the T-virus (unexplained ridiculous plot point Exhibit F). Alice’s psionic abilities become conscious to the point that she becomes like Jean Grey from the X-Men (unexplained ridiculous plot point Exhibit G). It’s all really just an excuse to have Alice act like the superhero and bust stuff up. Which is fine, but gimme a little something I can wrap my brain around. Anything. I’m easy.

You know, it's entirely possible that they really did explain all those silly plot points I so laboriously listed. Someplace in the second or third film. But is was all so vapid and boring that it could have slid right by me. Maybe I'm giving Paul (W.S.) Anderson too much credit. One of the things that I really loved and missed from the first movie were those “Through the Looking Glass” references that abounded. Maybe this one needed a little blue or red pill to make it digestible. I dunno.

“As your attorney, I advise you to take a hit out of the little brown bottle in my shaving kit. You won't need much, just a tiny taste.” – Dr. Gonzo. Truer words were never spoken, my friends.