Resident Evil: Extinction

Why should you see a third installment of what has been, up until now, a tedious portfolio of international film-financing strategies disguised as a video-game adaptation? Let me count the ways: One, Milla Jovovich plays some sort of spaghetti-western wraith who emerges from an underground bunker in a miniskirt/gunslinger ensemble to whoop ass on the living dead. Two, Milla Jovovich plays some sort of spaghetti-western wraith who emerges from an underground bunker in a miniskirt/gunslinger ensemble to whoop ass on the living dead. Three—well, you get the picture. And so does director Russell Mulcahy, who uses all the flashy moves he honed on Duran Duran and Billy Joel videos to munch guts, pop eyes, and scatter brain matter to the far corners of the wide screen. This is wall-to-wall mayhem that dashes from one stylish, splattery, nonsensical setpiece to the next, while the star attacks her silly role with the carnivorous brio of an ocelot clawing a side of ham. As such, it's the first of the agonizing Resident Evil movies that could remotely be considered fun. I eagerly await a sequel in which Milla Jovovich's clone army encounters a battalion of genetically modified Asia Argentos, and life as we know it ends in a maelstrom of bee-stung lips, crazy eyes, and runway hair-pulling. Until then, this'll do.