Review: “Resident Evil: Extinction”

So I finally got around to watching Resident Evil: Extinction on one of the free movie channels … and wow, I’m sure glad I didn’t pay any money to see it.  I thought the first Resident Evil was mediocre but watchable, and actually rather liked the second one.  The third one?  Not so much.

Rather than use my usual rating system of how soon it would put my wife to sleep (which would be:  Immediately if not sooner), I’m going to revert to the “Things I Learned From This Movie” format that I stole from badmovies.org and that I use occasionally.  Ready?  Let’s begin.

• Viruses have the power to dry up lakes and rivers, as well as to melt mountain snowpacks
• All scientists working on cloning projects should be required to see Multiplicity
• If you run a super-high-tech top-secret underground research facility, then obviously the best way to dispose of dead bodies is to take them to the surface and dump them in an open ditch
• Just because you have a convoy of vehicles that you stole from The Road Warrior doesn’t mean you know how to use them
• When someone is attacked and overpowered by a zombie carrying an infectious virus, no one will bother to check and see if that person has been bitten by same
• Overrun by undead crows?  Unable to see anything outside your vehicle because of all the birds flying around in front of you? Driving blind at full speed is always a good escape plan!
• Oded Fehr is cooler than any film in which he appears (cf Resident Evil 2, The Mummy Returns, this, etc.)
• Come the apocalypse, drug store makeup will still be available
• It’s a sad, sad thing when somebody decides they need to airbrush Milla Jovovich to make her prettier.  Milla Jovovich!
• Your odds of winning in Vegas when it’s abandoned and covered by sand drifts are only slightly worse than your odds of winning in Vegas now
• You can fit hundreds of zombies into a storage container if you really try
• All the fashionable undead are wearing powder blue jumpsuits this year

One additional note:  I found the soundtrack to this film to be unusually good for a trashy zombie flick; in particular, I really liked Collide’s cover of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” that is played over the closing credits.  It was almost worth sitting through the film just to hear that. If you like dark, mellow, techno-industrial-melodic type music (think Sister Machine Gun or Nine Inch Nails in a relaxed mood), check Collide out — you can listen to a preview of “White Rabbit” here.