Reviews// Resident Evil: Extinction - Movie Review

Extinction also sees an appearance from some other video game characters, although they are largely underused. Claire Redfield is quite out of character as the leader of the armed convoy. She doesn’t trust Alice, according to the press release I have in my hand, but in the film this is merely represented in a few gruff lines of dialogue in a scene and a half. Worse is the introduction of Albert Wesker, who is relegated from his badass stature to more of a ‘chairman of the board’ character.

It’s not all bad news though. Director, Russell Mulcahy (Highlander and the wonderful Razorback) makes the most of the script with some great visual shots and an overall pleasing use of photography. There are, in fact, a few shocks and surprises that may knock you off guard and are better than the average horror film. Milla Jovovich is always good in the roles she commits to and does a good job as Alice - see the use of 'good' twice there... yeah.

Having heard what the producers and director had to say about the film though, even after post-production, it just seemed like Extinction was far too ambitious for its own good. I kept hearing about how Alice had to shadow the armed convoy and avoid contact with Claire Redfield and crew, but in the film it amounted to Alice ignoring a radio communiqué and then helping the convoy fight undead crows a scene later – not exactly shadowing... But hey!

There were appearances of other mutated creatures such as zombie dogs, but they were rather token in a film that largely focuses on Dr. Isaacs and the Umbrella Corporation. The tyrant is also in the film during a key battle sequence, which leads up to a pretty decent finale of the trilogy, but by and large the film feels like it’s missing something.

John W.S. Anderson claims that bending the rules of the original Capcom story makes for a much more fulfilling movie-going experience. This I can agree with, as certainly there’s no point watching a film of a game you’ve already played and know the ins and outs of. On the other side of the coin, perhaps the key to videogame adaptations is not to take an existing universe and create your own one out of it, but rather work with the game’s canon and build interesting side stories from that.

This is something Resident Evil: Extinction fails to do, in classic Anderson fashion. Even if you can detach yourself from the game series entirely, the film on its own doesn’t stand up to much. It’s an enjoyable watch for those who want a brainless zombie movie set in the desert, but it is just too derivative of other such films, and as such loses any of its own identity.

Resident Evil: Extinction opens in cinemas next Thursday. It’s worth a viewing if you want to finish off the trilogy, but by and large it’ll leave you wanting a bit more from it. For that, you're going to have to wait until Capcom's Resident Evil 5 eventually arrives on a console near you sometime next year...