A slight improvement on the awful APOCALYPSE

Rating: 5/10 (1 October 2007)

First of all, I'm a fan of the games who liked the first movie. However, the horrible first sequel killed this franchise for me. After the pain that was sitting through that mess, I thought I could never enjoy any further RE installments. And yet, I found EXTINCTION more or less entertaining.
Be warned that this movie is far from great: The plot is highly derivative. In fact, it's MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR with zombies (and with Alice using the Force from time to time). Once again, gone is the horror and the oppressive atmosphere of the games; there's just some MATRIX-style action. Mila Jovovich's acting is as bad as her ridiculous costume. Of the other returning characters from APOCALYPSE, one is the annoying L.J. (who at least gets what he deserves, he he), Carlos is given little to do and only the evil Dr. Isaacs has something of an (over the top) storyline. All the other supporting characters are just thrown in without a proper introduction, so we can hardly care when they are killed. And as much as I hated the truckload of flashbacks from the original movie that plagued APOCALYPSE, I missed some sort of explanation on how the virus was spread over the entire world and what happened to Jill Valentine and Angie Ashford after the first sequel.
I guess my expectations were so low that I was impressed by the plus side: Russell Mulcahy's direction is way above the crimes against cinema that Alexander Witt committed in APOCALYPSE. The action scenes are well staged and shot this time (except for that idiotic THE BIRDS homage/rip-off). I specially liked the tie-ins with the original movie, like the opening scene, the new Umbrella facility (shown again through computer graphics) and the White Queen. Bringing two more characters from the games (Claire Redfield and Albert Wesker) was also a nice touch. I had a little problem with Ali Larter, though. I've always liked her, and during the first season of HEROES she has proved to be not only a believable action heroine, but also a better actress than I thought. The problem is that she is NOT Claire Redfield. In spite of that, I wouldn't mind if, as some rumors say, she takes over Mila Jovovich's Alice in a future RESIDENT EVIL 4. Maybe then, this franchise will become something closer to the games, instead of the Mila Jovovich show.