Resident Evil: Extinction Review

This review is for those people who want to watch Resident Evil: Extinction in its release week in Hyderabad. If the first two completely terrible films which never led anywhere, and the continuous milking of what is by now only in name a video game franchise, don't put you off, how about this: this one is more than a year old, only seeing the light of day now after the DVDs are abundantly available in all shops. If you still want to go watch it, let me spell it out for you: s-t-a-y a-w-a-y.

The third installment in this series about a genetically modified professional ass-kicker and half-zombie Alice (Milla Jovovich) starts off with seemingly heavy exposition. Alice, as it turns out, has an antidote for the zombie plague in her body, though the antidote could wipe out not just the zombies but everything. The film from the outset pits her against genetically (or technologically, or both) enhanced zombies, and as she slices and dices her way through the horde, the film becomes obviously tedious.

Soon, on the run from the evil Umbrella corporation, she comes across these survivors who need her help in fighting the zombies - in Vegas. After the ludicrous plot runs out, the film is filled with the requisite cool kills and tense moments (only this time, the damn crows are zombies, too), and before you know it, Extinction is over.

Not able to sustain itself beyond the ridiculous corner the makers painted the film into, Extinction is a mercifully short film that really only lasts a little less than an hour and a half. This is not a complaint, mind, as this is the only positive I can find in a film completely riddled with bad plot, acting, direction and even, hey, background score.

Milla Jovovich looks aglow every second of the film, leading you to suspect the zombies of this post-apocalyptic world. What kind of zombies wait for a girl about to kick their ass to put on face makeup? Her one-liners are hardly acting, as is her ever arching eyebrow. Oded Fehr and Ali Larter, the favorites of certain types of zombie flicks, do their best to scream and fight against CGI monsters.

This leads us to the production. Overall, the film has a cheap feel to it, but most of the effects and set design are pretty well done. Of course, the CGI and the set design lack the detail that a good director might have brought, but that is symptomatic of the film in itself.

A shallow, vacuous exercise in peddling cheap thrills as cinema, this is the worst kind of filmmaking. If the review still doesn't make it clear, you deserve to watch this film and let it humiliate you for having bought the Rs. 100 ticket. While you fight the urge to use a controller, I will be trying to get the bad memories of this one out of my head.