Spring Break
Resident Evil: Ex-Stink-tion
Fernando Dutra
Issue date: 9/24/07 Section: Focus
Fans of the Resident Evil video games will be surprised by the final installment of the movie trilogy. But not in a good way.
"Based on the game Resident Evil by Capcom" is one of the first things the viewer sees during the end credits of the film, reinforcing the Hollywood-established pigeonhole that video game films are simply good for a mind-numbing entertainment experience or to leech money off the loyal gamers who made the franchise so successful on home consoles. While it's hard to boil an experience that typically lasts anywhere from 10 to 50 hours into a two hour film, it's misleading to use brand recognition, in this case Resident Evil, and completely deviate from what the games represent. The film follows a character completely unrelated to the game through events that feature zombies and brief cameos from the game characters. The character has powers never used before in a Resident Evil game, and so on.
Regardless of its affiliation to a well-known and respected video game franchise, the film provides a mangled and rehashed plot line that has been better implemented in other films. While this is the third film in a trilogy, viewing the last two isn't necessary, as the plots have little to do with one another and characters rarely cross over. The basic plot (if one could call it that) of the film is this: Alice, the protagonist from the first two films, must save the world from "extinction" by ridding it of the Umbrella Corporation and the zombies they have helped create. Along the way she has to fight zombie canines, flesh-eating crows, deal with her unexplainable latent psychic powers, join a hodgepodge of survivors, and help them get to Alaska. The film doesn't slow down in order to explain these little plot devices or to dabble in such trivial things like character development. Rather, the film focuses on style over substance, with dialogue only serving as filler between high-octane and often uncalled-for action scenes.
The film mainly suffers from its open-ended nature. Whereas the games normally focus on a claustrophobic setting and a core group of adventurers who one by one go missing or get taken away, "Resident Evil: Extinction" takes place in the middle of a desert, following Alice as she moves from location to location. Survivors who get eaten by zombies or pecked at by crows are simply numbers, as the film makes no attempt to build an emotional relationship between the audience and the survivors in the film. The only character an audience would care for would be Alice, if only because she's been the main character for the past two movies.
"Resident Evil: Extinction" is a cliché zombie film doing nothing to push the medium forward. That being said, it is sure to join the ranks of other video game movie bombs like the "Super Mario Bros." movie, "Double Dragon," "Mortal Kombat," "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," "Pokémon: The First Movie," "House of the Dead," "Doom," "Bloodrayne," "DOA: Dead or Alive" and the "Tomb Raider" series.
Contact Fernando.Dutra at Fernando.Dutra@UConn.edu.
"Based on the game Resident Evil by Capcom" is one of the first things the viewer sees during the end credits of the film, reinforcing the Hollywood-established pigeonhole that video game films are simply good for a mind-numbing entertainment experience or to leech money off the loyal gamers who made the franchise so successful on home consoles. While it's hard to boil an experience that typically lasts anywhere from 10 to 50 hours into a two hour film, it's misleading to use brand recognition, in this case Resident Evil, and completely deviate from what the games represent. The film follows a character completely unrelated to the game through events that feature zombies and brief cameos from the game characters. The character has powers never used before in a Resident Evil game, and so on.
Regardless of its affiliation to a well-known and respected video game franchise, the film provides a mangled and rehashed plot line that has been better implemented in other films. While this is the third film in a trilogy, viewing the last two isn't necessary, as the plots have little to do with one another and characters rarely cross over. The basic plot (if one could call it that) of the film is this: Alice, the protagonist from the first two films, must save the world from "extinction" by ridding it of the Umbrella Corporation and the zombies they have helped create. Along the way she has to fight zombie canines, flesh-eating crows, deal with her unexplainable latent psychic powers, join a hodgepodge of survivors, and help them get to Alaska. The film doesn't slow down in order to explain these little plot devices or to dabble in such trivial things like character development. Rather, the film focuses on style over substance, with dialogue only serving as filler between high-octane and often uncalled-for action scenes.
The film mainly suffers from its open-ended nature. Whereas the games normally focus on a claustrophobic setting and a core group of adventurers who one by one go missing or get taken away, "Resident Evil: Extinction" takes place in the middle of a desert, following Alice as she moves from location to location. Survivors who get eaten by zombies or pecked at by crows are simply numbers, as the film makes no attempt to build an emotional relationship between the audience and the survivors in the film. The only character an audience would care for would be Alice, if only because she's been the main character for the past two movies.
"Resident Evil: Extinction" is a cliché zombie film doing nothing to push the medium forward. That being said, it is sure to join the ranks of other video game movie bombs like the "Super Mario Bros." movie, "Double Dragon," "Mortal Kombat," "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," "Pokémon: The First Movie," "House of the Dead," "Doom," "Bloodrayne," "DOA: Dead or Alive" and the "Tomb Raider" series.
Contact Fernando.Dutra at Fernando.Dutra@UConn.edu.
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