Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) - The only positive I have for this, is that it's not as bad as I remember lol Not that its good, it's just a very generic post-apocalypse flick. It's all functional, there's nothing specifically bad going on, it's just Mad Max (For some reason the T-Virus wiped out the climate and environment? Sure, whatever...) with some Resident Evil dressing on it. There's actually less going on here than I remember, which means I might be mixing up some happenings with the later films and clips I've seen. Not a lot happens in this. They fight off some zombie birds, they go to Vegas and fight some super zombies, and then it's the finale. That's mostly it. Claire is here because they need to try and entice fans, despite the very boring setting, and she doesn't really add anything in particular, much like Jill from the second movie, who for some reason isn't in this one. I'm curious if she's just gone.
Overall, competent zombie flick, bad Resident Evil.
Resident Evil: Afterlife - I did end up watching this one before, I thought I stopped with Extinction, but I do remember watching this one. It's definitely the worst yet lol I think Paul W.S. Anderson is getting worse at filmmaking as these go on, because I think the first one is genuinely a good film, has some decent tension, horror, and action, it has a good style without being TOO over the top, but this movie is just like "You want to see the biggest, most ridiculous action scene we've done yet? No? WELL HERE IT IS ANYWAYS!" It's so cheesy and bad and it never gets any better. The effects are actually a huge mixed bag throughout as sometimes it's good and other times it's really bad looking. Like that implosion of Tokyo? Impressive. The composite shots of clone Alice? Hilariously terrible lol
This one is probably the most egregious when it comes to adding in Resident Evil stuff randomly, like Chris's introduction is so improbable just to have him exist now. They introduce Las Plagas, but never discuss what it is at all, it's just vaguely some sort of Umbrella experiment...I think...It's really not clear why they exist or what the Executioner from Resident Evil 5 is doing there lol It's just a lot of bad story and action going on. At the very least, Extinction was a functional post-apocalypse film. This was just kinda nothing.
Resident Evil: Retribution - More fan bait stuff with this one pretty quickly...Ada, Leon, Barry, at least their introduction isn't as improbable as Chris was, but it doesn't add anything to this ridiculous scenario going on. Most of this movie is basically like one long action scenario, an entire finale from the very start. Honestly...I kinda like this more than the last movie. It's still just dumb action schlock, but it cuts out all the excess, there are no new characters to really learn who they are, much of the situation is explained in clear exposition, it gets to the meat of it way quicker and I can at least appreciate that.
Again, not that this means it's good. It's just too ridiculous and not in the right way for me, because the action is never good, which is this series biggest sin. Action in these movies is one of two things. Either ridiculous, unrealistic, wire stunt, with slow mo bits, or people standing still and shooting guns with a stern face in wide shots and slow motion. Also Alice is supposed to be "human" now, but she is still doing standing back flips and doing the crazy fight stuff she did before with little holding her back and it only shows up as her being "human" at the very end against a juiced up Jill or brief moments throughout with a gut wound she's dealing with.
While I didn't hate this one as much as the last, I'm very happy I'm coming to the end of these movies. I still have no idea why I subjected myself to this run, I guess, I felt like because I always considered these movies other than the first one trash, it might not have been 100% fair for me to do having only watched half of them (Or 4 for of them as it turned out), but once this is over, I can say with certainty, they aren't good other than the first one lol
Also as much as I rag on these, I would rather watch any of these movies, than watch Welcome to Raccoon City again...that one is going to be king of the crap pile for sure. On to the last movie...