Resident Evil: Extinction

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After a significant period of reigning as one of the prime originators to create and dictate the genre of survival horror videogames, Capcom's famous series, Resident Evil hit even movie theaters back in 2002 via a film adaptation many thought would be better if never made. Especially the hard core Resident Evil fan was disappointed, being left with a story tailored to practical, narrative purposes, not having as precise relations to the original subject matter as one with good old, geekish affections for it hoped it would. Well, I am truly not in the position to offer an opinion on the latest Resident Evil games as I did not yet have the chance to try them out, but as I recall it is safe to say about the earlier installments that they were/are massively fight oriented, linear screencrawls with at least two zombies or other monstrosities present at any given time to assault, and mastering the control mechanics posed a challenge similar to frenchkissing a King Cobra, rampant on extasy pills.

While I tend not to regard the original Resident Evil fiction as horror's most delicate language to listen to, I would be surprised if the recent games would have not developed in this aspect. They probably have, yet it seems that the movie franchise have reached an independent right for itself to come up with various buildups on the trademark Resident Evil elements, as well.

The third motion picture installment of the saga introduces a story written by Paul W. S. Anderson, a filmmaker who started off the series, and also a creator who had his precious moments - Event Horizon - and acts of profane atrocity - Aliens vs Preadator. Nevertheless, he could come up with quite decent of a story this time around, though he left the essential key elements of the saga intact. There are three of such things. Zombies, more zombies, and Milla Jovovich in crazy-ass outfit. They are certainly included, and make up for a highly defendable, fresh effort on this particular motion picture product line. If you think three onions are way too much for it, then please click the Read more! button. If you think three onions are way too scarce for it, then please get a life.

The director of Resident Evil: Extinction, Russel Mulcahy has been around since 1982 as premier celluloid controller, he was the one to deliver us the magnificent film variant of Highlander back in 1986, and also he was the one to voice Duke Nukem in the critically acclaimed First Person Shooter, Duke Nukem 3D in 1996. Of course, one of these latter statements is false. A director of great experience, armed with stable hands and aware eyes we are fortunately talking about, so it is safe to say that he could play all the creative content out of Anderson's storyline, with results similar to a blend of the post apocalyptic appeals of Mad Max and the usual gimmicks and everyday scares of the zombie genre.

A road movie we behold, and zombies are feasting at every hundredth stripe of the highway, baby. So the atmosphere is rather stable, and powerful. Oh. I think we are ahead of ourselves a bit, so let us account on the synopsis, briefly. The epidemic claimed the majority of Earth's population. STOP. Zombies are everywhere. STOP. The remaining survivors either choose to take shelter by moving constantly, or by establishing themselves underground. STOP. Alice - Milla Jovovich - had gained fresh, considerable psychic powers. STOP. Alice also gained a fresh, crazy-ass outfit. STOP. The underground sinister scientist and his associates are conducting experiments to develop a cure, based on Alice's vague genetic data, and they do all this by the most radical means currently conceivable. STOP.

Following a brief, though smartly and appropriately eventful roaming period in the desert, Alice stumbles upon a moving hotel to collect and house survivors, basically a Mad Max-ian convoy to seek both other people and the spark of hope to regain the deteriorating will to continue out. The most curious circumstance is that we virtually wrapped the whole concept up via this very sentence, yet in the meantime a great degree of conscious, wise design choice emerged and chose to stick around for this 90 minutes. The humongous spatial setting of the desert that the story takes place in and the constant danger the infected population poses to anyone who tries to coexist both offer solid, trusty guarantees for an atmosphere you will enjoy being threatened by.

Unfortunately though, intense gunsling and action becomes the main driving force of the narrative fabric, with one or two peek moments prior to the final showdown, in which the movie gives a decent tribute for the videogame genre by presenting a conclusion battle akin to Boss Fights usually and welcomely found in products of interactive horror fiction. The action, interestingly: is the less interesting in this here latest Resident Evil motion picture effort. Who cares if a zombie's brain got splattered around the scene when 1. you are in the desert, so there is more than 'nuff place to house some delicate gray matter, 2. there is always yet another zombie to splat apart.

Anderson and Mulcahy both have definite, though fervently concealed cluelessness about how to make the story more or at least as interesting as the mere conditions it takes place in, and since they fail painfully in this regard, the fight sequences tend to claim two or three additional, bonus minutes for themselves after failing to reach top excitement: placebo offered as acknowledgement about how happy and how stuck Anderson is with the great atmosphere he visualized. Writer and director both did quite a decent job of breathing life into this buildup, but you see: this is the fault, as well. Anderson should have breathe in horror if to go for five onions.



The flick still works, nevertheless, and works more fluently than its two predecessors. The general appeal of the Resident Evil movies that they take themselves superseriously is firm and intact this time around, too. No place and occasions for jokes here, and no place or occasions for serious character development, either. Sure thing, this is basically a quite fluent, extralight comic book buildup, so one could argue if any degree of seriousness is needed to keep things moving. I would agree that a "no" could be given if not having more aspirations than moving the film forward in the usual, action-oriented trigger happy badass-stance, yet I got the impression that the atmosphere could develop considerably, while the narrative fabric ended up being satisfied without any more delicate content than the series already have offered. Though this is clearly unfortunate, the general mood and setting the movie exhibits show evident signs of a fruity process, so there is legit option to continue the saga on the canvas - especially after such a radical, ambitious conclusion the flick dares to rely on.

The best of it being its atmosphere, the least successful of it being the quite calculable events to occur in-and on its very best part, Resident Evil: Extinction remains a promising statement to leave us with an above-average excitement factor to future installments of the series. Tell you what: if the consecutive effort manages to come up with a similarly powerful setting and chooses to introduce character drama, then we will have a truly memorable piece of horror entertainment. Until then, though - let us observe one of the main selling out factor of the Resident Evil motion picture production line, and we shall do that by a precious moment when the creators denied all chance from us of failing to notice it. Here goes:



You see: dressing like this is of ESSENTIAL importance in the Wasteland.



So make sure you grasp as good and intent of a look at it as you are anticipated to.

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