Resident Evil: Extinction (Blu-ray)

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While I had enjoyed Anderson´s adaptation of "Mortal Kombat," I have been less than pleased with each successive film touched by Paul Weasel Sh*t Anderson since he destroyed "Soldier" and created the horrendous first entry in the "Resident Evil" series. As the writer and producer of this third film, W.S. hasn´t improved my disdain for anything he touches, but I don´t think I hate him any less. The "Resident Evil" films are a complete travesty and this film does absolutely nothing to redeem himself, but I feel that director Russell Mulcahy put forth a yeoman effort in trying to create a worthwhile film from the script handed to him by Anderson. The film looked really good and had a couple of redeeming qualities, but Anderson´s complete mishandling of the "Resident Evil" storyline continues to destroy the series.

Video:

The high definition Blu-ray presentation of "Resident Evil: Extinction" is an average offering from Sony. Mastered with the AVC MPEG-4 codec and shown in its 2.40:1 theatrical aspect ratio at the ´Full HD´ resolution of 1080p, "Resident Evil: Extinction" does the best it can with the bright sunny locations, but falls a little flat during the night-time and low light sequences contained in the film. The palette is stylistically altered during the ´hot sunny day´ scenes and colors are overblown to artificially create a hotter-than-natural palette that gives the impression that it is damn hot. Considering the overly warm hues, colors are decently saturated and the limited reds contained in the film look wonderful. The darker scenes are cooler in coloring, but with weaker than usual black levels and shadow detail, "Extinction" looks a little flat when lighting is poor. Detail is very strong when the sun is high and I loved scenes where the convoy was rolling across the desert floor. Night time scenes suffer in detail as they did in coloring. With no apparent flaws in the digital mastering and strong source materials, "Resident Evil: Extinction" isn´t overly impressive, but it does shine rather nicely at times.

Sound:

"Resident Evil: Extinction" finds Sony supporting the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 format in lieu of the more familiar usage by the studio to use Uncompressed PCM audio. English and French languages are supported by TrueHD and Spanish and Portuguese languages have a lower-tech Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. The TrueHD soundtrack is a fairly good audio mix and sound surpasses the visuals of the film. "Resident Evil: Extinction" is an aggressive sounding film with a few near-reference sequences that shows off how well the mix utilizes the rear surrounds and subwoofer channel. The ´Crow Attack´ scene is absolutely amazing to hear and audio surrounds the viewer from all directions as the undead birds attack the convoy. Gunfire is loud and natural sounding with a wonderful metallic clanking sound to the spent shells. Bass is deep and effective. The musical score by Charlie Clouser fills all channels and can be quite loud at times. Dialogue holds up throughout the film, although some may not consider this a blessing. This is definitely a strong sounding Blu-ray title.

Extras:

Sony has provided a number of quality supplements for "Resident Evil: Extinction" and the title is one of the earlier examples of Blu-ray Profile 1.1. As is the case with my other Profile 1.1 titles, I was forced to review the supplements by using my Playstation 3 unit and not my Samsung BD-P1400, which is incapable of doing anything cool. The Under the Umbrella: Picture-in-Picture feature provides a video commentary style presentation that is similar to what Universal had done on HD-DVD with its "U-Control" functionality. This isn´t an overly impressive PiP feature, but I am happy to see more Profile 1.1 films arrive. Audio was a problem with the PiP, as the sound level was far lower than the film´s volume and I had to play with the remote at times to hear everything clearly from the PiP. Blu-Wizard is another ´Blu-ray Exclusive´ feature and simply allows you to select your own custom playlist of bonus materials. This simply saves you from navigating the menu during bonus material playback.

Three other features are included with the Blu-ray release, as well as the Resident Evil: Degeneration Trailer for an upcoming CGI feature film. The Filmmakers´ Audio Commentary with Director Russell Mulcahy, Writer/Producer Paul W.S. Anderson and Producer Jeremy Bolt was far better than I had expected and the trio supplied a great deal of information pertaining to the making of the film, the video games in which the series is based and some additional plot details. There was hardly any ´white space´ during the commentary and each person shared microphone time. Beyond Raccoon City: Unearthing Resident Evil Extinction (31:07) can be viewed as two separate featurettes. It features many of the stars and crew from the film in interview segments and this polished and promotional half-hours is your typical promotional feeling feature, but does have some nice moments in it. The eleven Deleted Scenes (8:26) are short and can be viewed collectively or separately.

Closing Comments:

I am just not a fan of what Paul W.S. Anderson has done with his adaptations of the "Resident Evil" games. He mentions that he is a fan of the zombie genre and has used this franchise to keep the zombie genre fresh and entertaining. I can´t agree with him and feel in many ways that he has done the rich universe created by Capcom a great injustice. Milla Jovovich continues to work very hard at making her Alice character the best female hero to hit cinema. However, the writing for these films continues to be less-than-impressive and while I think this may be the best film of the three, it is still hard to call "Resident Evil: Extinction" a good film. It does have some entertaining moments, but too many flaws and shortcomings to really impress. The stylistic visuals are good during the day, but weak at night. Sound is good and the supplements are decent for this Profile 1.1 release. If you enjoy these films, then this will be a wise purchase. Otherwise, I´d suggest grabbing some of the old George A. Romero films that are making their way to the format.

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