The third in a series of film adaptations of a popular video game, "Resident Evil: Extinction" (Screen Gems) is clearly aimed at an audience that doesn't mind being scared, horrified and totally grossed out. Whether even they will be willing to endure 95 minutes of boredom is another matter.

The plot, such as it is, concerns an international conglomerate, the Umbrella Corporation, which inadvertently unleashes an experimental virus on the world, turning most of the population into flesh-eating zombies, while the earth is transformed into a desert. The still-human survivors must try to search each other out.

One group of hearty souls forms a convoy and takes to the road. They are led by Carlos (Oded Fehr), L.J. (Mike Epps), Claire (Ali Larter) and Nurse Betty (Ashanti). It would be nice to be able to say more about these characters, but apart from the last named, none has a discernible profession. This is a film in which the humans are as indistinguishable as the zombies.

Equipped with such vehicles as an oil tanker with an impromptu cowcatcher designed to push slow-moving zombies out of the way, the group wanders about, then decides to go to Alaska, where presumably the infection hasn't spread, via a stop in Las Vegas (or what's left of it) to refuel.

Their travels bring them into contact with Alice (Milla Jovovich), a superwoman whose heightened powers are the result of experiments conducted on her while she was a prisoner of the corporation. Her desire to fight the evil scientist, Dr. Isaacs (Iain Glen) -- who is trying to turn the virus to the corporation's advantage -- leads to the film's gruesome climax.

Watching director Russell Mulcahy's gorefest may be the cinematic equivalent of going into combat. There are bursts of gunfire, explosions, enough blood to keep the Red Cross in business for months and, in between the occasional moments of jarring fear, long periods of abject tedium.

The urbane Glen does the most with what he's given, and there are a few amusing film references, such as one sequence clearly influenced by Hitchcock's "The Birds," though of course minus that director's brilliant subtlety. But these meager positive elements hardly compensate for the almost complete absence in "Resident Evil" of plot, characterization or purpose.

The film contains nearly constant blood, gore and mutilation, cannibalism, brief frontal and upper female nudity, drug use, and much crude and some crass language. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Movies have been evaluated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting according to artistic merit and moral suitability. The reviews include the USCCB rating, the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief synopsis of the movie.

The classifications are as follows:

• A-I -- general patronage;
• A-II -- adults and adolescents;
• A-III -- adults;
• A-IV**
• L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
• O -- morally offensive.