Resident Evil: Extinction

The final part of the videogame-derived ‘Resident Evil’ trilogy is the least boring. Faint praise, perhaps, but one must be grateful for small mercies. Based on a script by series creator Paul WS Anderson, Australian director Russell Mulcahy’s post-apocalyptic movie owes much to countryman George Miller’s ‘Mad Max’ movies. The corpse-regenerating T-Virus, which in the last instalment escaped from the Umbrella Corporation’s underground laboratory to infect the whole of Raccoon City, has now spread across the entire United States. Superhuman Alice (Milla Jovovich) – a beautiful but rebellious by-product of the corporation’s search for an antidote – joins a convoy of vehicles driven by a ragtag band of human survivors. The crazed Dr Isaacs (Iain Glen) keeps an eye on them, using the corporation’s all-seeing satellite surveillance system, as they roam the Nevada desert and sand-swept Las Vegas streets in search of food, water and fuel. Until Alice decides it’s time to settle the score with her mad-scientist creator once and for all.
The plot is every bit as episodic and nonsensical as before, but ‘Extinction’ ups the ante by introducing some new and/or improved adversaries: a murder of mutant crows, who prefer live flesh to carrion; a new breed of killer dogs; ‘Super Undead’ zombies that are more fleet of foot; and a squidgy, tentacled monster called The Tyrant. Amid the choreographed fights, loud explosions and CG creatures, there are some new and old faces. But the scariest visage is that of Alice, whose flawless, airbrushed complexion is either a throwback to Mulcahy’s New Romantic pop promos or something dictated by Jovovich’s L’Oréal contract.