Even though the tagline for the next movie in the series' tagline is 'Evil Goes Global', technically that's what happened in Extinction. The end of Apocalypse saw Alice captured by Umbrella (again) and broken out by Jill and Carlos. Then Alice's eyes are shown to have the Umbrella logo imbedded into them (which aludes to her being under their control).
Alice is no longer with the group and Jill Valentine is simply gone with no explanation. The entire world is now infected with the T Virus and most of the U.S. is a desert (for some reason). Albert Wesker is now the chairman of Umbrella and is looking for a cure. They are cloning Alice a bunch at the same time and killing her over and over again (for some reason). Most of the movie takes place in Las Vegas, which holds no bearing on the movie other than the advertising campaign (All Bets Are Off..... sigh).
The main plot point at the end of the last movie was that Alice is under Umbrella's control. This comes up for literally 15 seconds in the movie. Her eye changes, she freezes, then she breaks free of the control. This is in the middle of the movie. If there was any potential for this plot point, it was wasted. This wasted cliffhanger is only challenged by the brief reference to this movie's ending in its sequel Afterlife.
There is a sequence where crows infected with the T virus attack the convoy. Alice shows up and uses her super T virus abilities to create a fire storm to kill the flock. This is the coolest sequence in the movie. The rest is a rehash of the previous movies, but in the desert. They once again reference things in the games passively. These are nods more than truly using the source material. This movie bears the least resemblance to anything that happens in the games.
One of the interesting things about the movie is that a new A.I. is introduced, but this one is on Alice's side. White Queen, who claims to be the sister of the A.I. in the original movie. The first movie being the highlight of the series made this one of the more enjoyable moments in the movie.
Wesker is one of my favorite characters in the video games. He was underutilized for this movie. He was in a couple of scenes and looked a bit different than in the games. In the next film, he looks to be taken right out of Resident Evil 5, but in this one, it looks like someone just put on some glasses and started droning on about viruses. Then he probably took a nap and started over again.
Claire Redfield shows up. Carlos is killed in one of the more entertaining action sequences. Claire's brother, Chris, who other than Leon Kennedy, is the main protagonist in the games, is no where to be seen, nor is he referenced in this movie. He does show up in the next movie, but that's a subject for the review of Resident Evil: Afterlife.
Tyrant (or something very similar to him) finally shows up in this movie. The sequence is done pretty well, especially the death sequence, which harkens back events in the first movie. That seems to be the pattern with this film, calling back to things that happen in the first movie, but never measuring up to the original.
Resident Evil Extinction was the most unnecessary entry into the series. It has even less to do with the games than before. The fight sequences are okay compared to the rest of the series, but still has some solid action sequences. The plot is a mess, more so than in Apocalypse. If you're a fan of the games, then you might enjoy this, but if you're looking for an action filled zombie flick, then you should look towards 28 Weeks Later or The Dawn of the Dead remake.
I also post Horror related articles on Examiner.com. The reviews for the other two movies are there if you're interested. I'm going to post Afterlife and Retribution's here in this format, but do me a solid and click on the link if you haven't already.
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