I remember seeing this movie in the theater. It was in 2007, and I had just got back home from the Navy. A college class had an assignment where I needed to write a few reviews. I can’t remember what the other reviews were, but one of them was on movies, and I watched Resident Evil: Extinction.

When I saw the film, I thought I missed a movie in between Apocalypse and this one. I was very confused with the direction of the movie. It was like Mad Max with zombies in it.

At first, I thought I needed to play Resident Evil 4 to understand what was going on. Then I played Resident Evil 4 and learned that the movie had nothing to do with the games anymore. This was the last movie I watched in this series.

Mad Max with Zombies

Remember those characters from the second film? Well, some of them are back, but don’t get too attached to them. So, where does this movie start? It starts at the beginning of the first film with Alice waking up in the mansion! Why not!

We learn that the T-Virus destroyed the world. Somehow, it was able to destroy plant life, freshwater, and apparently only turns Birds, dogs, and humans into zombies. Does it affect any other animal? Who knows, who cares?

Umbrella has underground facilities worldwide and is trying to find a cure for the people who are already zombies. Yes, they have an anti-virus, but that only works if you haven’t become a zombie. Why would you think it could turn a zombie into a human, you big goof?

Humanity has been reduced to roaming bands of people scavenging for resources to keep themselves alive. This is when we meet two characters who have been missing from the series. Wesker and Claire Redfield are in the movie.

Umbrella is hunting Alice because they believe she is the answer to their huge zombie and bio-weapon problem. I guess they can shut her down with satellites. Also, she has psychic powers that let her destroy the satellites… sure.

Oh! The guy from the end of the second film, Dr. Issacs, is still alive and has been hunting for Alice. He is terrible at that part of his job, but he does make super zombies. This is actually when the movie turns into a crappy version of Day of the Dead.

Dr. Issacs is trying to domesticate the zombies. This goes about as well as you might expect. He unleashes the super zombies on our heroes when they are in Las Vegas looking for fuel.

I should mention our heroes because it is one of the things the movie does a decent job of setting up. The film tries very hard to create sympathy for a group of people who are given names and backstories. This is an attempt to make you feel bad for them when they eventually die.

I felt like they did a good job of this when I first watched it. The feeling was gone after seeing it a few times because the surprise of seeing them die had already been spoiled. This also led to one of the dumber moments.

Umbrella drops a shipping container filled with super zombies into Las Vegas for our heroes to find. This container is like a clown car. Zombies keep coming out of it with no end in sight. Also, our heroes completely forget about shooting the zombies in the head.

Dr. Issacs and a team of Umbrella soldiers are in Las Vegas to recover Alice after the super zombies kill her. This is when she uses her superpowers to stop a satellite. During this, Dr. Issacs gets infected.

When he gets back to his underground facility, he starts injecting himself with the T-Virus. This mutates him into a Tyrant. They don’t call him that, but you might see the resemblance if you’ve played the first games. Then, he goes on a rampage in the facility, killing everyone there.

Alice, Carlos, Claire, and K-Mart (There is a girl in the movie called K-Mart that I forgot to mention. I don’t have anything to add to this.) break into the Umbrella facility to steal their helicopter and escape to Alaska. I should probably explain that.

Alice found a journal from someone who was listening to the radio. This journal explains that there are survivors in Alaska, and the infection isn’t there. Jill’s band of survivors is planning on going there.

This leads to one of the stranger parts of the film. I have no idea how many people are left in the group. I guess it doesn’t really matter because most of these people will never be heard from again.

Alice breaks into the facility, discovers her clone, and fights Dr. Issacs. With the help of her close, she is able to defeat the doctor. Then she crashes a meeting of Umbrella executives and warns that she is going to kill all of them. That is when we learn that she is growing an army of clones.

I guess we’re done with the games?

Resident Evil 4 came out in 2005, two years before the movie was released. The Nintendo DS received a port of the first game in 2006, and in November of 2007, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles was released.

From what I can tell, this movie ignored all that. It went off in a completely different direction. This is an action movie that just happened to have Resident Evil branding.

There are some callbacks to the first movie and the video games. The writer and director made their own thing, which just happened to have a few characters from the video games. It was a strange decision.

I had a question when I was watching this movie. Was the villain, Dr. Issacs, in the video games? The short answer is no. He has nothing to do with the video games.

I guess someone liked the character because he gets brought back in one of the movies. I think it is Final Chapter, but I don’t remember. It turns out he is a clone, and I’ll save that can of nonsense for when I get to that movie.

The one thing I can say is that his final form in the movie reminds me of the Tyrant from the Resident Evil games. I think it was in the first or second game, maybe both. That is a nice call back to the genetic testing that Umbrella was doing since the Licker and other bio-weapons were dropped from the movies.

Was it all bad?

Not really. If this wasn’t a Resident Evil movie, it would have fit in with the other zombie movies released in the 2000s. It is a decent action movie.

I liked the fight scenes; some of the special effects look good, and the practical effects look great! The CGI is hit-and-miss. Some parts look great, and others are horrible. The birds breaking through the bus window look really bad.

The makeup on the zombies and Dr. Issacs looks very good! It is one of the better things in the movie. They look like zombies that have been around for a while and had to wander through the desert.

Most of the zombies act like the traditional ones from the Night of the Living Dead. They lumber around with limited motor functions. Then the super zombies show up. While I don’t like the idea of zombies that run, I think this is okay since Umbrella mutated them.

While I think the plot is dumb, and I don’t like the direction they took the series, I do like the way this movie looks. It doesn’t save it, but I don’t think it is all bad. I wish they had done something with the plot from the fourth game or followed up on what happened at the end of the second movie in a more satisfying way.

If you liked this post, please check out my posts on Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Apocalypse.