Every now and then I watch a movie I know I will hate just so I can make sure I give every film released an equal chance. One of those movies was Resident Evil: Extinction, which I watched today. The first two Resident Evil movies redefined awful. They made absolutely no sense, and had cheesy special effects, and featured some of the most embarrassingly lazy dialogue ever created for a film. This third one is no exception. In this one, Milla Jovovich returns as the zombie-dispatching hot chick bad-ass. Here’s something that irritates me. Zombie movie purists. The people who get angry when you call these creatures zombies when they clearly aren’t. You see, the “zombies” in Resident Evil are created by a virus, and they aren’t dead people re-animated, they are just sick people. The “zombies” in 28 days later are infected with rage, they are not re-animated dead people. Who cares. If it walks like a zombie and talks like a zombie (aaarrrrrhhgghghhh), then it’s a zombie.
Two more things that irritate me. First - when an actress in a movie is naked, but strategic hand placement and sheet placement and objects obscure your view so that you can’t see any of the “good bits”. If you want to see that actress naked, then this will irritate you, not titillate you. If you don’t want to see that actress naked, then that means you don’t care if she is naked or not. In which case this will irritate you. Resident Evil: Extinction is R-rated. Why not just go for it? In Resident Evil, not only do they open with this scene, they hammer it home over and over again. You see, Milla Jovovich is a clone. Or something. It doesn’t matter. These clones of Milla exist in some kind of embryonic stage, suspended in bubbles of water. As clones in movies tend to be. It would, of course, make sense that these clones be naked. And they are. It would not, however, make sense that they would be covering their own chest with folded arms, each hand placed carefully over a nipple. That does not make sense.
The second thing that irritates me is when people say “lock and load” in a serious manner. Unless it’s Steven Seagal. Then it’s hilarious. This phrase was immortalized by John Wayne in the movie Sands of Iwo Jima (an average war movie at best), when he used it in a serious manner (going to war) and also a humorous manner (going to get drunk). Ever since, it has been a horrible cliche. It certainly gives one the impression that the screenwriters sure couldn’t think of anything original to say, and that at least they KNOW “lock and load” sounds bad-ass. After all, they’ve heard it in so many other movies. You know the guy in Resident Evil is a tough guy, because he says lock and load before the good guys do battle with some bad crows.
OK. One more thing that irritates me. When nerds on the internet say “the movie stays true to the video game”. It’s a video game. A movie staying true to it is not likely to be a good thing. Staying true to a book? That could be good. Even then, sometimes it’s a bad thing. But when you’re lifting a plot from a video game, you are likely to have a pretty thin plot. So you have to juice it up with something else. Like Angelina Jolie’s boobs in Tomb Raider, or a bonkers techno soundtrack in Mortal Kombat. Here’s the thing. If staying “true” to the comic book, or the book, or the video game is important to a potential viewer, then it is important only to those who have read the comic or the book, and played that video game. Even then, it is likely important only to those who have PLAYED (read: obsessed over) that video game. Which is like four hundred people. Anyone else watching that movie will have no idea what’s happening, and will not care at all.
Not that I am reading this about Resident Evil: Extinction. (Although I have read that about Silent Hill, which was a colossal waste of a movie also.) I have no idea how close in spirit, tone, or plot points this film was to the video game. If the video game had only three plot points, which seems likely, then I can only surmise that the movie is extremely close. The world is a post-apocalyptic wasteland (remember - Resident Evil: Apocalypse? Now this is Resident Evil: Post-Apocalypes.) There are a few survivors, one of them is Milla Jovovich on a motorbike who plays Mad Max. Or Kevin Costner from Waterworld. Some evil guys are doing some evil things at the cleverly named Umbrella Corporation. That’s it. That’s the plot. And even that’s not done well.
That being said, Resident Evil: Extinction IS the best of the three films, which is not saying much, I know. It’s kind of like saying No Strings Attached is the best N’Sync album. The only way to justify that opinion if someone asks you is to say “well, it IS”. And yes, I had to look up that N’Sync reference. Which only makes me hate this movie even more.