Movie Review: ‘Resident Evil Extinction’ (2007)

Director: Russell Mulcahy

Cast: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Oded Fehr, Iain Glen, Ashanti, Mike Epps, Spencer Locke, Jason O’Mara

Plot: The actions of Umbrella Corp has resulted in larges portions of the Earth being reduced to a barren wasteland. Alice joins with a convey of survivors, whilst Umbrella experiments on her clones.

Review: This may be the point in the series where I’m beginning to enjoy these things. The transition from Temu adaptations of Resident Evil games into a Mad Max-style wasteland gives the whole thing a distinct feel. Distinct, at least, from other entries in the franchise. We have the lunatic corporation who will destroy the planet for the sake of their portfolio and the hordes of mutant zombies, but now we have a fun setting and all manner of Red Shirts.

They play a bit of silly buggers at the beginning by replaying some of the events that opened the first film. Alice (Jovovich) wakes up in a mansion with amnesia, but this time she is brutally killed by a trap. Turns out this is a clone created by mad scientist-type Dr. Isaacs (Glen), who is experimenting on her, and she is the latest of a long series of butchered clones. This could well end up being set-up for something bigger in the sequels, but it has little bearing on the plot today. The real story is Alice trying to get to Alaska.

For a while, I thought I had missed a key point in the story, because it feels like Alice found a random book in an old diner and it turned out to be the lore bible for this world. We get some close-ups of pages claiming Alaska is safe from infection… then we turn the page to a map of Alaska with a big red circle around it and two arrows pointing at it… then a postcard with “Go to Alaska” printed on it…

I guess we’re going to Alaska.

Alice seems convinced by this random notebook and manages to pull a convoy of survivors into the scheme. The group is headed up by Actual Game Character Claire Redfield. On the downside, this feels like the character in name only. Flip side: she’s played by actual badass Ali Larter. Even more surprisingly, a couple of named characters from the previous film are in the mix. They very almost have personalities. They also have seemingly unlimited access to hair and beauty products, even without food.

The plot is thin and the action is ridiculous, but by the time we reached this point, it feels like a feature rather than a bug. There’s a fly-kick or two that we had to skip back and rewatch a few times. There are a few gimmicks that have made it into the formula, and we do get a kick when they use a CGI wireframe model to show the size of a facility before zooming into one tiny room.

What we really started looking forward to was any scene with Iain Glen and the cohort of sinister businessmen. Glen is on a tear as a smirking evil scientist who has no time for ethics when there’s progress to be made. He’s in ridiculous scenes teaching zombies how to take photos, but he fully commits to the part. The lunatic overarching villains at Umbrella are just as much fun. The world is an infested wasteland of mutant cannibals, and they’re in an underground bunker at a meeting table talking about business goals and stock prices.

We still haven’t reached the point of being good movies, but we may have reached the peak of this series. The promise of Alice running around with a pack of clones holds some stupid promise.

Rating: SIX out of TEN