What would make the Resident Evil franchise ever so slightly easier to follow would be if they numbered their movies like most other series of films. Granted, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977), arguably the granddaddy of all franchise starters, had a confusing title, but they got straightened out eventually. Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) is the third installment in the titular group of video-game-to-cinema productions, but if you had been watching the previous two as I have, you might be confused by the beginning. Indeed, I spent a few seconds wondering if I had rented the wrong movie. Thankfully, I did not, and so it was time to soldier on with as much Catholic zeal as I could muster.

That confusion is intentional, as Resident Evil: Extinction opens with Alice (Milla Jovovich) apparently waking once again in the shower at the mansion, putting on the familiar red dress, and retracing locations from the first film. This time, however, she encounters a succession of traps and is killed. Umbrella employees collect her body and dump it into a pit already filled with dead Alices, revealing that the woman was merely another clone created for Dr. Alexander Isaacs’ (Iain Glen) experiments. The real Alice explains that the T-virus escaped Raccoon City despite Umbrella’s efforts, spreading across North America and then the world, killing vegetation, drying up bodies of water, and turning civilization into a desert populated largely by the undead. Alice now travels alone because Umbrella can track her and anyone near her. After surviving a trap set by human marauders using a false distress broadcast, she finds a notebook mentioning Alaska as a possible infection-free refuge. Elsewhere, Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) leads a convoy of survivors that includes Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr), L.J. Wade (Mike Epps), K-Mart (Spencer Locke), Nurse Betty (Ashanti), and Mikey (Christopher Egan). While searching a motel, L.J. is bitten but conceals the wound. The next morning, infected crows descend upon the convoy, killing several survivors and threatening to overwhelm the rest. Alice arrives and, using telekinetic abilities that have grown since the previous movie, creates a wall of flame that destroys the flock. Reunited with Carlos, she meets Claire and tells the group about Alaska. The survivors vote to head north, but they first need fuel and supplies, making Las Vegas their next destination. Beneath the desert, meanwhile, Umbrella remains remarkably functional despite having helped destroy the world. Chairman Albert Wesker (Jason O’Mara) oversees the corporation through holographic meetings while Dr. Isaacs experiments on Alice clones and infected humans. He believes Alice’s blood can produce a treatment for the T-virus and has developed a serum that makes zombies more intelligent but also faster and more dangerous. Umbrella’s treatment of the Alice clones as disposable laboratory material is another reminder that scientific ability does not confer moral permission. However artificial their origin may be, the film presents these women as human beings rather than equipment, something Dr. Isaacs seems incapable of recognizing. When Alice’s psychic activity reveals her location, Dr. Isaacs defies Albert’s orders and sends forces after her. The convoy reaches Las Vegas only to discover the city nearly buried beneath sand. A shipping container suddenly opens and releases Dr. Isaacs’ enhanced zombies, which slaughter much of the group. L.J. finally succumbs to his infection and attacks K-Mart before biting Carlos, who kills his former friend. Umbrella remotely shuts Alice down, but she fights through the command, locates the technicians controlling her, and turns the tables on them. Dr. Isaacs escapes by helicopter, although not before being bitten. Back at the underground facility, he injects himself repeatedly with antivirus. Captain Alexander Slater (Matthew Marsden), acting on Albert’s orders, shoots Dr. Isaacs for disobedience, only to discover that the treatments have transformed the scientist into a rapidly regenerating monster. Using information taken from Umbrella, Alice and the remaining survivors locate the facility and its helicopter, their best chance of reaching Alaska. Carlos knows his bite has condemned him, so he says goodbye to Alice and drives a fuel tanker into the mass of zombies surrounding the compound, detonating it and opening a path for the others. It is a genuinely sacrificial act in a series where they are few. Carlos cannot save his own life, but he can still choose to spend what remains of it saving others. Claire, K-Mart, and the surviving children escape in Umbrella’s helicopter while Alice stays behind. Inside the facility, she discovers the pit filled with her dead clones and meets the White Queen (Madeline Carroll), an artificial intelligence related to the Red Queen from the first film. The White Queen tells Alice that her blood may provide a cure and that the mutated Dr. Isaacs is below. Alice descends and finds another clone of herself, who awakens briefly before collapsing. Dr. Isaacs, now transformed into a beast known as Tyrant, attacks Alice and boasts that he is the future. Their fight carries them into a recreation of the Hive’s laser corridor. Alice allows the laser grid to advance, expecting both of them to die, but it slices Dr. Isaacs apart and stops just before reaching her. The Alice clone, very much alive, has shut down the system. In Tokyo, Albert tells Umbrella’s remaining executives that the North American facility has been lost and that capturing Alice is now their highest priority. Alice suddenly appears holographically at their meeting and warns Albert that she is coming for him, adding that she will be bringing some friends. Those friends are revealed in the final shot: Alice and her surviving clone look across rows upon rows of additional Alice copies waiting beneath the facility.

After three films of Umbrella trying to turn Alice into its property, she now has an army made in her own image at the end of Resident Evil: Extinction, which is probably not the resurrection anyone had in mind. Still, in discussing these films, I have already explored the dangers of man playing God in order to create life. Human cloning is another example of these kinds of dangerous experiments, and the Church teaches that it is intrinsically illicit because it violates the dignity and uniqueness of the human person and separates procreation from the self-giving union of husband and wife. Revealing this should not come as any surprise, and I would rather discuss moments that have a more concrete Catholic connection. The first that comes to mind is after the zombie crow attack, when the convoy survivors are burying their dead. It is always interesting that Hollywood, at least with Western films, almost invariably puts up a cross as a grave marker. There is also a shot of L.J. praying over Nurse Betty’s final resting place and making the Sign of the Cross as he finishes his supplication. This Catholic would argue that the reason we see these kinds of gestures on film is because of Christianity’s connection with the afterlife. There is an aversion in Western culture to thinking about death, and modern secular life can make it easier to avoid questions about God and eternity. And yet, when it comes to the end of our lives, those questions have a way of returning, including whether we will spend eternity in His presence. We want to believe that our loved ones will have that eternal rest, and those grave markers are a sign of that hope. What would be better is if we paid more attention to the fate of our souls in this life.

Speaking of the well-being of our souls, you could make a positive step in that direction by not watching Resident Evil: Extinction. As with its cinematic cousins, it is simply there to set up the next film, but this one seemed to have mostly forgotten about the previous one. All this adds up to a pretty dumb viewing experience.