Sunday, September 23

Resident Evil: Extinction Review

Spoilers are abound so only read if you have already seen it or don't mind getting spoiled
I only seen bits and pieces of the first movie Resident Evil. I always wanted to see a sequel movie, having never seen the previous ones, to see how the movie holds up on its own. I am a fan of horror monsters such as zombies and vampires and women kicking ass.

So the movies is set several years from the second one, in an apocalyptical wasteland. The T-virus has infected all the Earth, wiping out most of the oceans and plant life. For the human race being wiped out, there is still a pretty bunch of humans left. Alice is on her own, feeling like she endangers everyone around her and everyone keeps dying. Her pal Carlos (Oded Fehr) from the last movie is hanging with a convoy lead by Claire Redfield, a character picked up from the game titles Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil: Codename Veronica. She is wonderfully played by "Heroes" Ali Larter. The group sends radio signals asking for survivors but since Alice had been betrayed once in the movie--by freak punks, in a scene that I found a waste.

The rest of the movie is very solid, not bad. I expected a horrible movie, throwaway b-movie. I had not seen the second movie but I could follow this one just fine. I am not the ordinary movie watcher, but I think any horror or action fan can follow this one. As for horror, it is just a shock jumper. The deaths didn't impress me so much. It isn't anything I hadn't already seen before. I usually like the human deaths more in this sort of movies but this one, there is not much to see. The production values are good, it is noticeable how much was spent on it. Most of the character interactions don't feel forced. What does is the African-American characters, unfortunately the movie suits to cliches. The only two black people like each other. Well, I can't say they are the only ones that die, pretty much everyone dies. What cool thing is that pretty much most of the men die in this movie. Three of the main women survive and that's just fantastic. Where in horror movies, most women tend to die, even in the ones that are headed by women (Aliens and such).

Who is freaking annoying is Dr. Issacs (Iain Glen). Iain Glen is an actor that you can love to hate but the character, you just wanna kill him. There are cute scenes involving Alice's powers and K-Mart, the cute blonde the convey adopted and also a reference to the Red Queen, when Alice meets the White Queen and calls the red one her 'sister'. The White Queen is a computer system that looks like a little girl. If anyone is worried that Ashanti spoils the movie, don't fret, she is taken care of early on, you barely notice her. Overall a good movie, with homages to the original movie and one twist but most of it you can see coming a mile away. It is a crowd pleaser, there were young guys in the row in front of me that kept reacting like "Ohh!" to a death and stating the obvious "Her bike is broke." Not scary but fun.