Completely Lost in the Desert

Rating: 4/10 (26 June 2016)

The Resident Evil franchise has been limping to the bank for the past decade shelling out increasingly turgid fare to an audience sure to lap it up because...what other video game movies are there The first one (2002) was okay. It was slightly enjoyable but you could tell it was adapted from a video game in that everything that moved was to be shot at. The second Apocalypse (2004) was absolutely dreadful trying hopelessly to add a complex mythology that makes little sense when you think about it.
But lets suppose a killer zombie virus concocted by a seemingly omnipresent corporation is released into the populous. Mind you this corporation has a huge personal army, unlimited funds to build massive underground laboratories with complex security grids, track people with satellites and has access to nuclear weapons. And let's suppose our hero, Alice is an ultra-hot cyborg/clone/whatever-the- hell (Milla Jovovich) who wants to take this corporation down. Finally let's suppose the virus was not only released but thrived and quickly took over the globe. Thus we get Resident Evil: Extinction.
The film starts with a prologue about how because the T-Virus has infected everyone and everything, most of the terrain in North America has been replaced with arid desert. Now why do we need to know that? All of the action in this installment takes place on the outskirts of Las Vegas, an area already surrounded by desert. With that in mind, that nugget of information seems unnecessary. Speaking of unnecessary; there are a disappointing amount of meatsacks in this film. I say meatsacks because, let's face it, other than Alice, all other characters are zombie food.
Now there are a lot of problems with this movie but the one that threw me for a loop the most was the inclusion of Mike Epps who provided "comic relief" in Apocalypse and now provides stupidity in Extinction. As with all zombie movies, once you're bitten you're pretty much dead and early on Mike Epps is a dead man. So instead of telling the small band of survivors "hey I'm chopped liver, pull over, I'll walk from here," he keeps his wound secret until he turns at the most dramatically convenient time. Oh and another thing, our heroine has telekinetic abilities? What...when...explain movie! Repeating the word "T-Virus" doesn't tell me anything.
The movie ends with our heroine finding multiple clones of herself and telling the main villain Wesker (Shawn Roberts) she's gunning for him next, which delightfully sets up the next movie with fans of the series able to access the mythology with finger-banging glee. As for those on the outside; you best just quit while you're ahead.