Resident Evil 3: Extinction [2007] - DVD (Milla Jovovich, Robert Kulzer, Spencer Locke, Oded Fehr, Ali Larter - Dir: Russell Mulcahy)

Movies based on computer games generally aren't well respected, but just because they aren't high art doesn't mean they can't be highly enjoyable. The only catch is that you need to be a fan of computer games to appreciate them. Resident Evil: Extinction is the third movie in the massively popular Resident Evil franchise, and it's probably the best one yet.

Between Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Extinction, the zombie-creating T-virus has spread far beyond the doomed Raccoon City; now the human race is almost extinct (hence the title). When a convoy of survivors meets up with the genetically-altered Alice, the shadowy Umbrella Corporation does everything in its power to take them down and reclaim her; but Alice isn't giving up without a fight...

Resident Evil: Extinction is part zombie movie, and part post-apocalyptic survival yarn. The big set pieces use CGI that doesn't look anything like reality, but does look very much like a computer game, which is possibly intentional--since this is a sequel to an adaptation, Resident Evil: Extinction does tend to assume a built-in audience which is already familiar with the various quirks of the franchise. If you're a fan of the games, you'll enjoy the various references to game characters and events; if not, you might feel a bit left out. It's not the best entry point to the franchise if you're a complete newcomer, but if you've seen the other films, it's a hell of a lot of fun. -- Sarah Dobbs

Customer Reviews of Resident Evil 3: Extinction [2007]

David Byrne
United Kindgom
6th October 2008

The Best one so far...
This film deserves so much more credit. 3 Stars ? What the hell is going on , this film is wicked. Its full of action and horror. Best of the resident evils , oh but wait i guess people would rather watch something stupid like 'SHROOMS' or 'WAZ'. If they make a number 4 that would be just wicked !!!

Langdon Ulder
England
31st August 2008

The best of the 3
Extinction is best Resident Evil film, better in everyway, better acting, better gore and better looking zombies. Although there is no references to the games in this one (unlike apocalypse which was based on Resident Evil 3 Nemesis for the PS1), extinction is better than the first one and apocalypse put together.

Jason Thorne
England / Oxford
11th August 2008

LOADS OF BIRDS SHAME THAY HAD FEATHERS!!!!
This is the best by far of the three so far the action and gore is from the word go. The story moved along at a nice pace and the special effects were outstanding the scene when the birds attack the base camp was very good. Overall this is well worth a watch and there is pleny of kick ass zombie action with a big selection of guns!!!

Chris Wood
UK
18th July 2008

High quality ass kickery
The best of the Resident Evil movies, this film has plenty of top action and a good amount of salivating zombies getting creatively hacked up. Milla Jovovitch is lethal and gorgeous by turns, and knows more about decimating the undead than any other screen star of recent memory. Good stuff, strongly recommended.

Jasper

1st June 2008

wasnt expecting much after apocalpyse.......
and i got what i expected, the story vaguely picks up onto the end of the apocalpse, and the opening of this film, uses scenes from the first film to very good effect, and i have to say was one of the best bits of the whole film. After that though, sadly it goes down hill, the story kinda bolted onto the end of the existing films, by a 2 mins cgi globe and alice talking about how the t-virus has wiped almost everyone out. It joins alice on the road going to help some survivors, and lets just say thier game backfires.

The film also focuses on some of the people you will know from the second film, (although not jill valentine surprisngly) who have to hit the road and are searching for survivors as well as a safe haven, this is led by claire redfield, (yet another resident evil character used completely out of context) and the film goes on, with the survivors getting attacked by all means beasties (and crows) but the film just kind of plods along in its hopelessly predictable and zombie killing ways.

UNTILL....

things get all too wierd and a bit tooo matrix'y with alice. Most of the film progresses on like this and only seems to return when a) they get to las vegas, although even that bit is slightly ruined by the intervention of umbrella, but it still makes for fun action packed viewing, and the final series of events when alice goes on the hunt in an underground research lab. This scence is brilliant and is really what all the resident evil film series shouldve been like, and the evil beasty in this film is brilliant, and brings back the scary unbeatable monster type events from the games, unfortunately this AGAIN is ruined by more matrixyness, this is meant to be resident evil not a showcase of mind trickery, and the end well i personally didnt like it, but it does tie in several themes that have linked the films together.

Saying that it still has a bit of a cliff hanger ending with the survivors, and i dont know, but it does sound a bit similar to what happens in resident evil code veronica x, but i may be wrong!

The cgi is good, the ending is not my cup of tea, it has a couple of gems in it but sadly this has neither the storyline or the tense horror sequences to rise it up from being 'just another zombie flick'