Zombie Squads
Resident Evil: Extinction (DVD)
Sometimes I wonder about movie titles with an ":" in them. Like "Underworld: Evolution", "Alien vs Predator: Requiem" and "Alien:Resurrection". I think it is more honest to just tag on a number, and ":"-movies are sort of like bad movies who try to fool us they won't be real "sequels" which of course is exactly what they are. If not more so.
Okay, with the Resident Evil movies I can accept it might also have to do with separating the films from with the numbered computer games they are based on.
The Resident Evil movies feature Milla Jovovich and are written by Paul W S Anderson. I'm not exactly sure how movies like this are written, coming to think of it, but I think it is the Paul Anderson of Soldier and Mortal Kombat fame, although he hasn't directed this movie. Milla is our heroine with not only martial artsy talents and superhuman physical abilities but also, after the second movie, "psionic" powers. She fights zombies who in the first movie took over an underground lab, in the second movie a city and now in the third, Extinction, the world. They probably will take over the solar system in the fourth movie (yes, there is a set-up for a fourth) and the galaxy in the fifth...
Anyway, with the Earth turning into a barren wasteland from the evil zombie virus (that's what the movie claims) Milla and gang are now cruising around in Nevada (if you think it would be more evocative to set it in a more verdant place today to show the downfall of Earth instead of something which looks rather much like what you'd expect from a million road movies, yes, I agree with you) in order to save themselves, go to the Safe Place and fight the Evil Corporation who strangely seems to be even more advanced now even though civilization is falling apart completely. In the process they visit a very CGI Las Vegas which shows how fast sand dunes can move on film as opposed to say, in real life, if you ever have studied aeolian processes. Zombies get slaughtered, people die and Milla kicks and chops things, and the story is barely coherent. If you haven't seen the previous two movies it probably makes even less sense, but then again, that may not be that big a problem.
That said, this isn't quite as bad as it sounds. The overwhelming Mad Max vibes with added zombies are kind of cool, like a piece of the old Fallout game, and it generally looks rather nice. There's decent action, the actors aren't totally lost and while there are stereotypes in droves (like that every motley band of survivors undoubtledly will have one helicopter pilot among them) I think that in some ways, even though the story is pretty lacking, this might be the best of the three Resident Evils. And Milla is wearing the same type of rather impractical clothing but at least have big kukri-like knives to chop with. The psionic stuff feels rather unnecessary, though.
Minuses for a crappy ending (just like in the second Resident Evil), for Sony's horrible product placement, and I mean horrible, for mysterious things like why the blazing sun doesn't make more of gridded shades inside cars with windows covered with metal nets and for some things which are too stupid to make sense even for a movie like this. Someone should have spent a little more time on the story on this one and played a bit more on the cooler Mad-Maxian vibes. But hey, as a somewhat fan of the collapse genre and of action movies with Milla in them, I can take this.
Sometimes I wonder about movie titles with an ":" in them. Like "Underworld: Evolution", "Alien vs Predator: Requiem" and "Alien:Resurrection". I think it is more honest to just tag on a number, and ":"-movies are sort of like bad movies who try to fool us they won't be real "sequels" which of course is exactly what they are. If not more so.
Okay, with the Resident Evil movies I can accept it might also have to do with separating the films from with the numbered computer games they are based on.
The Resident Evil movies feature Milla Jovovich and are written by Paul W S Anderson. I'm not exactly sure how movies like this are written, coming to think of it, but I think it is the Paul Anderson of Soldier and Mortal Kombat fame, although he hasn't directed this movie. Milla is our heroine with not only martial artsy talents and superhuman physical abilities but also, after the second movie, "psionic" powers. She fights zombies who in the first movie took over an underground lab, in the second movie a city and now in the third, Extinction, the world. They probably will take over the solar system in the fourth movie (yes, there is a set-up for a fourth) and the galaxy in the fifth...
Anyway, with the Earth turning into a barren wasteland from the evil zombie virus (that's what the movie claims) Milla and gang are now cruising around in Nevada (if you think it would be more evocative to set it in a more verdant place today to show the downfall of Earth instead of something which looks rather much like what you'd expect from a million road movies, yes, I agree with you) in order to save themselves, go to the Safe Place and fight the Evil Corporation who strangely seems to be even more advanced now even though civilization is falling apart completely. In the process they visit a very CGI Las Vegas which shows how fast sand dunes can move on film as opposed to say, in real life, if you ever have studied aeolian processes. Zombies get slaughtered, people die and Milla kicks and chops things, and the story is barely coherent. If you haven't seen the previous two movies it probably makes even less sense, but then again, that may not be that big a problem.
That said, this isn't quite as bad as it sounds. The overwhelming Mad Max vibes with added zombies are kind of cool, like a piece of the old Fallout game, and it generally looks rather nice. There's decent action, the actors aren't totally lost and while there are stereotypes in droves (like that every motley band of survivors undoubtledly will have one helicopter pilot among them) I think that in some ways, even though the story is pretty lacking, this might be the best of the three Resident Evils. And Milla is wearing the same type of rather impractical clothing but at least have big kukri-like knives to chop with. The psionic stuff feels rather unnecessary, though.
Minuses for a crappy ending (just like in the second Resident Evil), for Sony's horrible product placement, and I mean horrible, for mysterious things like why the blazing sun doesn't make more of gridded shades inside cars with windows covered with metal nets and for some things which are too stupid to make sense even for a movie like this. Someone should have spent a little more time on the story on this one and played a bit more on the cooler Mad-Maxian vibes. But hey, as a somewhat fan of the collapse genre and of action movies with Milla in them, I can take this.