Somewhat better than #2, but my favorite is still the first

Rating: 5/10 (22 September 2007)

None of the Resident Evil films have been great. Part 1 was interesting and caught my attention, part 2 was boring with some nice scenes, but nothing good enough to recommend. Now we have part 3. I would say the third is somewhat better than the second movie, but not as good as the first film.
In the finale in the series, mankind is mostly extinct except for a few survivors. Some of the survivors are living in the world and continue to exist by not staying in one area for too long. Other survivors include the last of the Umbrella Corporation which caused the T-virus to escape in the first place. They live underground and continue to plot how to continue living in a world over run by the undead. The Umbrella group's plan is to control the undead and train them in ways that will domesticate them and make them easily controlled, but to hell with the human survivors. This is something I don't understand. Why try to domesticate flesh craving zombies? Why not help the human survivors to extinguish the zombies once and for all and try to start a new world? That's one problem with this movie.
Alice (Milla Jovovich in the role for the third time in the series)is the wild card. She wants to wipe out the zombies and help the human survivors, and now she has psionic powers to go with her fighting skills. She can suddenly create forcefields as well, but never seems to use these powers as she should. With her powers, she should be able to rid the world of the zombies, but she instead uses her battling skills with nasty blades and guns to kill them when using her powers would be more effective. I know, she doesn't seem to have good control over the new abilities, but you would think she would be willing to learn. After all, these psionic powers would make it much easier and more effective to deal with the zombie plaque, but then we wouldn't be able to see blood spray as she chops off heads and other limbs. Sigh.
The story is not real strong either, and the secondary characters are never really given any depth whatsoever. The action is nice and there are several shocks and surprises along the way, but it is never enough to keep the flow of the almost nonexistent story moving along in an interesting way. The story has something to do with heading to Alaska which may still be free of the zombie plaque. However, it is never given much thought.
Overall, Resident Evil Extinction is slightly better than the second film, but it still fails to match the first film. The story is weak and the characters, with the exception of Alice whom we've gotten to know in the two films previously, are also flawed. Of course Ali Larter as Claire, the leader of the band of survivors outside of Alice, offers something interesting to the story, but it is never enough. We wonder how she became this leader, but her story, like so much else in this movie, is never explored. I recommended the first film just barely, but I still cannot recommend this film even though it is slightly better than the second film.