Resident Evil Extinction - Blu-ray Disc Review

Resident Evil - Extinction, the third film in the popular Resident Evil movie franchise, makes its Blu-ray Disc debut. This installment, which is a mixture of Road Warrior, Damnation Alley, and Day of the Dead doesn't offer anything we haven't seen before in this type of film, but it does offer up both Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter. The high-def transfer supplies very good color and detail, but doesn't jump off the screen.

Upon viewing Resident Evil Extinction on Blu-ray, I found the video transfer to be excellent, with good detail and well-balanced contrast. However, close-ups of Milla Jovovich seemed kind of soft - either she has some of the smoothest skin I have seen, or her makeup is masking her real facial detail. On the other hand, Ali Larter's close-ups (as well as the male characters) looked more detailed and natural. The special effects shots were very good and seamlessly integrated into the film very well, but there was nothing really original or cutting edge, in terms of technique.

As far as sound quality goes, the surround sound imagery was excellent throughout the film. Sony includes a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack, as well as standard Dolby Digital 5.1 combined with several languages. However, it would have been nice to offer an Uncompressed 5.1 channel PCM track as well.

There are some great bonus features and previews, but most are standard def. However, it must be noted that this disc is a Profile 1.1 disc and offers two features that owners of profile 1.1 Blu-ray disc players can access.

These features include a true picture-in-picture video commentary (in addition to the audio-only commentary) and "Blu-Wizard 2.0," which is a sophisticated menu navigation and search tool that can memorize your disc viewing preferences and store them into the player's memory for future reference. However, it must be noted that my current Blu-ray players are profile 1.0, so I was not able to evaluate these two features and provide an opinion.

Based on what I was able to view and evaluate, I give the Resident Evil Extinction on Blu-ray Disc 4 Stars out of 5.

Video Display used: Westinghouse LVM-37w3

Components Used: Sony BDP-S1 Player, Samusng BD-P1000 Player, Onkyo TX-SR705 Receiver, Klipsch 2-F2's, 2-B3's, 1-C2 speakers and Sub10 subwoofer.