A humble review of Resident Evil Extinction

I consider myself a reasonable man. When I go out to nice restaurant and the food isn't quite as delicious as I was expecting, or the service was slow, I forgive that because I know that really, they don't want to be there as much as I don't want to be there when I'm working. When I'm driving and someone cuts me off, I may squint an eye but I let it go because I know if they're in front of me, there's a lot less of a chance that they'll hit me. However there are exceptions to every rule imaginable. Look at the platypus. And my exception is movies based on my favourite topics. Like ohh...let's say...Resident Evil movies. That's right, Paul Anderson, this is about you. A couple of hours ago I watched the newest installment in the series of shear bullshit that is the resident evil movies and I stand before you now saying with clear conscience that my past critiscism of that worthless excuse for a hollywood mogle Paul WS Anderson has been if anything far too merciful.

I'd warn of spoilers but if you've ever spoken to me about what I think this movie is going to be about before it hit theatres, you already know the storyline. I was bang on. But nonetheless, here be spoilers. OoooOOooooOOooh. oh btw happy hallowe'en, before I forget.

From day one of the resident evil project we have seen Paul Anderson show a complete disregard for anything resembling resident evil-nay-anything resembling a storyline, in so far as to say a storyline put together by a drunk who had written most of it in a foreign space language he made up that was inspired by the texture of his own fecal matter would have made a better screenplay- Neglecting characters, entire plotlines, simple logic, inserting his own plotlines and rediculous rhetoric and basically making a mochery of everything Shinji Mikami has created. Insulting, even, to the intelligence of its viewers- even those not versed in RE lore. Now you may be saying "BUT CHRIS It's just a movie, movie versions usually suck!!!11"

I have said it before and I will say it again, the first resident evil movie wouldnt have been a big deal if it was just a turd trying to be resident evil then a turd that was activly trying to pass itself off as resident evil. Under any other name, that movie might have been ok in my book and we wouldn't be where we are now.

When one stands before a pile of vomit, one has two choices. One is to either continue to vomit and not turn back, or one can try and give the pile of puke a nice pretty dress and say 'see I'm being true to the fans.' I'm talking of course about resident evil apocolypse. Somehow, beyond the reasoning of time and space itself. Beyond God and all that exists in his wonderful creation, Paul found a way to make a film that actually managed to outdue the shittiness of the first movie in the most ironic way possible: By making it more resident evil. WHAT?? Well let me explain: In the first movie, if a few nouns had been changed it would have been a shitty movie but not a shitty resident evil movie. When Paul added in characters canon to resident evil as well as events true to resident evil in the second movie, he was.. urrghh

Fluffy bunny lived in a forest, one day fluffy bunny decided to make a movie about the legend of rock tree hill. so fluffy bunny went over to rock tree hill and took a big crap all over it. The people who enjoyed the legend were horrified because fluffy bunny had ruined everything rock tree hill stood for. but they gave fluffy bunny another chance. So fluffy bunny, instead of wiping all of his crap off rock tree hill and simply starting again, decided to take paper cut outs of the key parts of the written legend of rock tree hill and stuck them into the crap. dooming them forever. and then proceeded to have sex with his ex wife Mill Bunny all over the pile of shit

thats what I meant.

the moral of the story is: Who the hell gave fluffy bunny a career in the first place?

And now, without further ado, Resident Evil Extinction. Observed with the lowest expectation I've had since Tomb Raider 2- the only movie in my history I've physically walked out from because it was so awful.

The story begins some undeterminable amount of time from apocolypse. The world is now completely dead from the t-virus outbreak and zombies are the largest population on earth. What few survivers there are exist in small nomadic caravans who have to travel to survive. contunually evading legions of the undead ghouls. Alice has somehow managed to distance herself from everyone around her, fearing that her newfound powers (she seems to develope a new kind of power every fifteen fucking minutes every film) would harm the other survivers so instead of doing the normal noble thing which would be killing herself so that she would NEVER hurt her own friends (honest to god I believe that's what the noble hero who does more harm then good normally does- especially when it may mean the difference between life and the extinction of humanity) and so instead of being with them she..I can only assume travels from town to town and pisses on the ashes. I don't know. What makes even more sense is that she does actively seek out more survivors-even though she's trying to distance herself from anyone who's alive so that she won't harm them but them goes out and looks for survivors....Seems airtight to me lets move on. After another few scenes of her wandering around in the dark, slowly walking up to someone who';s sitting alone in a chair facing away from them (Paul you did this same thing no less than TWICE in apocolypse, how about something a smidge fresher, eh? Oh wait nevermind I forgot who I was talking to) getting into another REDICULOUS martial arts fight with a bunch of zombie dogs (once again some sort of originality would be nice. Fuck I forgot already, your originality sucks moose balls too) and generally ebing a dumbass, Alice does that famous "sorry stevie" scene and uses a crossbow which we'll never see again for reasons completely unknown. The plot holes are stacking!

MEANWHILST!! on another part of the wonderful US of A, the caravan of relevent characters is making its way across America. In a refreshing change of pace paul anderson actually has these characters able to fend for themselves and not be scenery chewing planks of wood like someone else in this film...y'know...just talking about her..y'know the one I mean...wink wink... And for the first time we see Claire Redfield! Hurray for relevance...and...where's Jill? Hmm.. I guess she died at some point or..maybe went on to bigger things on anotehr umbrella stronghold or... maybe was so shamed of her role next to mila jovovovovovovovich in REA that upon being asked to reprise the role of Jill in REE she screamed "no" until her head exploded. I guess we'll never know. Next to Claire we have several kill-offable characters. A whole whack of children because apparently they're the future or something, some blonde chick named K-Mart (interesting side note: K-Mart actually states that after the zombigeddon she cast off her old name, probably cindy or something, and decided to go with a fresh start. Naturally K-Mart was the best possible choice. What;s the matter? some other kid take Wal-Mart? why don't you ask Futureshop if you can trade? Can I borrow $3.50 from IHOP? gimme a fucking break.) a black girl who isn't Michelle Rodriguez so I can only approve, Good ol Carlos played by that badass dude from the Mummy, some blonde guy, some cowboy guy, and of course our pal, LJ. Oh..oh wait.. LJ just got bitten by a zombie. Well without him..in a while.. we still have a few characters who are neither Mila Jovovovvolvovich nor Michelle Rodriguez so I count us in the green for now :D (I should stop making fun of michelle rodriguez, I actually kind of like her. Well..other then she's a horrible actress. But at least she wasn't trying to be something she's not- she's consistent- which is football fields and warehouses more then what I can say about Mila) This ragtag bunch of scooby doo-gooders wander around aimlessly for a little while until they decide to set up camp in the lot of abandoned buildings A B and C. Incidently they don't actually check the buildings for undead until AFTER they set up camp and built the parameter cameras (some pieces of technology even I will admit were a nice touch. Where did they get them in a post Apocolypto world? Why from digital remote cameras and weapons emporium. The only place open from worlds end till valhalla. damn vikings) and this lack of checking brings out pop-up scare number 34289354uy9235702870 thus far. You really...really..can see them coming. But wait! Its just...a lamp?.. something made the lamp jump right in front of claire's face? but apparently in the world of Paul Anderson, lamps do this all the time and Claire Redfield (or how I choose to believe she's actually labelled in the script: No nonsense toughgirl number 23-A*) is non the least phased. Later the caravan is attacked by some crows. Oh noooo! These crows were actually pretty strong and had the gang on the ropes for a good little while, well...until Alice arrived that is! Before she appeared I actually said "Good thing Mila's coming to save the day by single handedly killing every single crow!" My jaw dropped when I was right. Once because she showed up the nick of time-not nick enough to save about 10 people- which no one seems to comment on- but nick enough and yes, SINGLE FUCKING HANDEDLY KILLS EVERY CROW! Using her, get this, psychic energy to move a giant flamethrower attached to a bus to torch every single crow around.

If I may once again interject once again I'd like to make a brief review on Alice's ever growing list of powers. First she had nothing but golf peg nipples I assume she used as daggers. Then she had the crazy martial arts, then she could run up walls and appear behind snipers without them knowing- for reasons beyond any explanation because how the hell did she possibly know that guy was there, to making guys eyes bleed by looking at them- THROUGH A FUCKING SECURITY CAMERA to using force hover on some rocks while she slept to blatently ripping off The Invisible woman's force field powers (which if I may say were given to her because before that she could only. ONLY. turn invisible. some sexual equality thing I guess. Side effects include being a bitch- but thats another post for another time) Alice has absolutely no weaknesses and defeats every single one of her foes with incredible ease whether they dog, nem, or guy with fingers most men only dream of. The way Paul Anderson has created Alice, one could very well say, and I am about to, that watching alice fight is like watching superman beat the crap out of a kitten. There is no struggle, not even a point of suspence. She comes back with some stupid would-be catchphrase and, I will glibly interpret, DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCE defeats her foe. And I will say, though superman v kitten is an interesting idea, like batman versus michael jackson***, it gets a small bit stale after..um..3 and a half seconds**. And Paul's got 3 'films' under his belt.

then some stuff happens. They travel a little more, decide to go to alaska. Yeah, they decide that NOW. For some reason the following sequence happens:

Claire: We can go to alaska, it's not much but it's hope. Or we can stand around with our thumbs up our asses. Who's in for alaska?

*group raises hands*

Claire: Alaska it is

*Crowd hugs and cheers for some reason* Are they excited claire let them choose something? Were they really hoping this time Claire actually meant it when she asked their opinion? Was there a tv on behind Claire and the audience just witnessed the leafs winning the cup? (or broncos winning the superbowl for my yanky readers) basically a moment of 'oh my god it finally happened!' why would they cheer? she just told them about it now and she didn't guarentee jack shit. nothing makes sense. Speaking of not making sense, you probably saw the trailer of the gang riding through Las Vegas. Well they do that next and heres why:

They're near Salt Lake City. They want to go to Alaska. Las Vegas is a natural stop, naturally, of course. I don't know if Paul's ever seen it, they have this new thing called GEOGRAPHY. Might help with that whole..y'know logic thing.

Actually to be fair the whole planet is supposedly covered in desert so they may have been near Las Vegas at the time. Or in Fucking Japan. who knows? Pretty convenient setting device though.

They get to las vegas and it's..covered in sand. lots and lots of sand. "desert must have taken it back." Yeah that's definitly what happened. Death valley is that kind of desert after all. Now I'm no meteorologist or weather pattern physisist or whatever it is that the profession would be, but I doubt that the death valley desert would be able to swallow Las Vegas. 1 year two years, three, a thousand. I very much doubt it. But they have to be there to get gas which for some reason wouldn't have been swallowed by the sand as well. Go get em tigers. They need a lookout, cowboy guy goes up the eiffel tower, he dies. blonde kid does some shit and dies. LJ finally turns and dies, not before biting Carlos. thats right. Actually..let's do a head count at the end of that: Claire, Target, Alice and a wounded Carlos... oh and the school bus full of kids which suffered no casualties at all. somehow. Oh uh this happened because the evil Umbrella corporation somehow knew they were going to be in that exact spot and were able to unload a crate of they're new Dawn of the Dead (2004) style zombies in there without them seeing.. a helicopter or a truck or soemthing. and then all that shit went down. Tehy were doing alright until the company shut down Alice in a method that reeks so strongly of "WHY THE FUCK DIDN"T YOU DO THAT BEFORE!!!! RANT RANT RANT" that to even get into my feeling about that plot device would make me pop at least 4 blood vessels 2 of which are in my eyes. Apparently they use sattalites and a little camera implanted in her shoulder that, like many many many things, is completely unexplained.**** Right in the nick of time again, but not nick enough to save..welll..just about anybody, Alice wakes up from her drug dream where she was fortunate enough not to be torn apart by super zombies- despite being shut down in the middle of a battle with a bunch of them- and slaughters the rest with ease. and then heads on over to the tent where the baddies are and kills a whole bunch of them. how she knew they were there? who the fuck knows. Y'know, Paul Anderson uses Alice to solve problems the same way Japanese anime writers solve loose ends in plots. Where ANY***** inescapable doom can be solved by using one of Alice's many many powers, the japanese choose to solve any loose storylines by simply killing off everyone in the series in one fell swoop. Creative? perhaps the first time. Lazy? You bet your ass! Looking at you Paul!! God I hate you.

So now Carlos is bit, nearly everyone's dead. Somehow Alice knows that if they go to the Umbrella underground base located pissing distance away, they might be able to find a cure. Claire and the school bus kids all manage to fit into ONE HELICOPTER and leave for parts unknown. Alice and Carlos head to the base to find a cure. Carlos dies on the way in but Alice, never one to back down from anything: no matter how utterly pointless it may seem after the fact, presses on inside. (I'd have said fuck it and moved on) she goes into the lab and finds some crash course area constructed to look identical to the mansion from movie one, where the horror began in many many many many many many many ways, paul, and also finds a tyrant! Whoopy! A dracula! A frankenstein! A fucking something, that's supposed to fucking be, in the fucking place its supposed to fucking be****** Naturally Alice defeats it with ease. But not before finding out that..oh my god..they've been cloning Alices so that they could find out what would effectively kill her. And there are hundreds of Alice clones. This reminds me of that time I said that paul, if he could, would have Mila Jovovoviffylube play every single character. Well. How about that. Now I have conrete proof that have a movie where the only character is Alice is exactly what he plans to do. Did it leave room for anotehr sequel you ask? You already know the answer. Paul Anderson is going to continually shit out RE sequels until they're no longer profitable. I'm usually the first to speak out against remakes, but in this franchise's instance. I'm counting down the days. C'mon Romero, we can still bring your vision back!

And that, is how I felt about Extinction.

BONUS: Picture from one of my favourite scenes in any movie =)

As there are clones you get to watch a couple of them die. I radically approve and encourage the continued scenes of Mila Jovovich getting killed. Nothing personal mila.

*Where 23 is the number of girl and A-z is the variable of which NNTG is actually tolerable onscreen. 'A' being feature length and 'Z' being 3 and a half seconds, or Michelle Rodriguez (*twitch* damnit i did it again)

**Length of time taken for me to get tired of seeing Michelle Rodrigues

***Or as I call him, "The Real Joker"

****Lucas used this kind of unexplained technology a lot in that film called..um..Star Wars. The difference is that when Lucas did it, it was noticeable, but not so in your face and insulting that you had no choice but to question it's origin.

*****Not enough bold and italics and emphasis in the world

******Fuck off Paul anderson