Movie review: 'Resident Evil: Extinction'

Milla Jovovich in "Resident Evil: Extinction" (Credit: Sony)

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1 star (out of four)

They won’t land an Oscar nomination come next winter. But the folks who did the makeup for "Resident Evil: Extinction" ought to get their due.

Not for the generic zombies, the "undead" in their gory, bug-eyed glory, often dressed in matching mechanics’ jumpsuits. But for the ladies.

Somehow, five years after the viral apocalypse, years spent wandering the deserts where the sands are reclaiming towns like Las Vegas because civilization has collapsed, the lovely ladies of "Resident Evil" still have that catwalk glow. Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Ashanti and even young Spencer Locke are so perfectly coifed and painted up they could have stepped off the cover of a magazine.

"Extinction" - don’t think for a minute this is the last of these movies based on a video game - borrows from lots of sci-fi dystopias in its depiction of a planet infected to death. Read the new best seller "The World Without Us" and check out this film’s vision of what Vegas will look like when the folks who sweep up the sand disappear.

Milla J., as Alice, the clone-warrior, is a loner, a la The Postman, rummaging through dusty abandoned stores whose owners long ago died or were eaten by the undead.

Larter is Claire, leader of a convoy of survivors in a bus, tanker truck, Humvee, ambulance, etc. ("The Road Warrior"). They’re traveling the wastelands, broadcasting to any and all survivors who might hear their radio transmissions ("Testament"). They’re surviving on the remnants of what was on the store shelves, canned this or that.

The crows, at least, have been eating hearty. They come after the convoy as if they’ve just spent all night drinking Red Bull and watching "The Birds."

Meanwhile, the mad scientist (Iain Glenn) is even madder. He wants to "domesticate" the undead and he needs Alice’s blood. He and his minions are holed up in the vast desert underground lair where "The Andromeda Strain" might have been unleashed 30-plus years ago.

The loner must meet with the ever-shrinking convoy (Oded Fehr returns), because her supernatural powers are growing and she’s their best hope of escaping to her dream getaway, Alaska.

But Alice is a reluctant joiner.

"It’s just safer if I’m not around people. People have a habit of dying around me."

Russell Mulcahy, who never overcame the double-edged success of the stupid "Highlander" movies, directed this pastiche of other sci-fi movies and at least puts the camera in the right spot and shoots the action in a way that cuts together well.

It’s an insanely silly script, growing more so by the third act.

But Jovovich dons the short-shorts, the garters and French hooker stockings and takes care of business, cut-rate Laura Croft or no. She hasn’t had much luck turning this hit Z-movie franchise into a career renewal, but that’s not because she isn’t waving the machetes, doing the leaps and baring her teeth with all her might.

And she, at least, finds her way to more appropriate sun-burnt and battle-scarred makeup for the final showdown. Perhaps her Neutrogena was in her other shorts.

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