It's entertaining, and it definitely delivers what we expect from this series, and Anderson... for better or for worse

Rating: 7/10 (10 November 2007)

When a man continually writes scenes in which his fiancée appears naked(if not seen fully nude, save for glimpses which many a teen boy have undoubtedly paused and gone frame by frame to... admire; ah, the wonders of the DVD format), is he "sharing the wealth", or is he being a pompous jerk, rubbing her looks in our faces? Mind you, even if that particular fact does not make Anderson a jerk, there can easily be found other reasons to thrust that title of dubious honor upon him... in fact, I'm quite sure there are plenty who use far more explicit and visually descriptive phrases to describe the man. I don't know that I dislike him; it's actually almost funny, what he does. He writes horror that takes place in tight spaces, claustrophobic areas, he has gratuitous gore, he fills his work with loud, noisy rock music, he does action and horror with little respect for proper pacing or character development, his scripts are thin as, ironically, paper, and holed like Swiss cheese that's been attacked with a machine-gun, and last but not least, he insists on surprising his audience, pulling the rug out from underneath them, even though these surprises are at the expense of sense and logic. In spite of all of this, he manages to keep getting work. It's impressive, in an odd kind of way. And people do keep watching his stuff, in spite of how he treats the source material(before this franchise, there was Mortal Kombat, and he's also done Alien Versus Predator, managing to mess up *two* franchises that had good movies between them, well-done games made about them, and, so I hear, comics of, yet again, notably high quality). But I digress. Fear not, patient reader(as I'm sure you must be, for still reading this review), the introduction is over, and I will comment on the title itself, now. First off, Jill and Angie are gone, without even a mention of them. It's not even stated if they're dead or not. However, the very ending of the second film, for any who have watched it, *is* followed up on. The plot starts some time(every time I hear how long, it's a different amount of years) after Apocalypse. There's a different feel to some of it, with the characters much more mobile than in the first two. The script is about as bad as that of the usual Anderson film, but this still manages to be more entertaining and effective(if still not powerful, involving or engaging) because of one thing... the direction. With Witt of the second not in charge, and Anderson only writing, having not directed one of these since the first, it actually manages to rise... above the material? Possibly. It comes off as less obviously flawed than the second, though that may be more a matter of presentation than of content. With Valentine gone, another female known from the games is brought in... namely Claire Redfield. She's portrayed by Ali Larter, who does fine. Jovovich does fine again, albeit being less of a bad-ass than she was when we last saw Alice. She does still kick ass, and she's not the only one. The action varies, but some of it is definitely cool. The camera and editing, with the few exceptions where it confuses the viewer as to what's going on(which really doesn't extend beyond an early and utterly useless scene), really does a good job. Some of the action is really, really cool. In addition to Claire, other characters are brought in, though few do anything. Spencer Locke spends most of her on-screen time screaming or crying, with one of her only lines regaling the tale of how she gained her silly name. Epps stopped being funny at some point in-between the second movie and this one. The violence and gore is surprisingly tame(and there's less nudity and such), both for an R, and for an entry in this series. The make-up, however, is back, helping us viewers put behind us the pitiful excuse for not doing such, that was the presentation of the zombies in Apocalypse. The effects, in general, are quite good. The story borrows a bunch... from the first, in fact. Some bits are almost too close. The film is in a rush, as the others, and wouldn't have been bad off were it longer. The pace is intense. Near the ending, the movie gets too busy setting up a sequel(what comes after extinction? Although, one could have posed the same question just years ago, with "apocalypse" being the word), when it should be trying to properly finish of this one. The new monster, for my money, is great. The frights vary, some are jump-scares. All in all, the film isn't bad, and definitely delivers, if you liked the first two. The score has some hints to the main theme of the first, which I personally thought was excellent. I recommend this to any fan of the first two and of Anderson in general, as well as the actors. If you liked either of the first two, I'd say give this one a chance. 7/10