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Categories: Commentary
Tags: dvd, horror, movie, resident evil
Resident Evil: Degeneration
Directed by Makoto Kamiya
Starring Paul Mercier, Alyson Court, and Laura Bailey
DVD released: Dec. 27, 2008
Also on Blu-rayThe good news is that Resident Evil: Degeneration is accessible to people who’ve never played a Resident Evil game. The bad news is that if you have played a Resident Evil game, then you’ve seen this all before – not only that, but you’ve done this all before. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Resident Evil: Degeneration is a 90-minute CGI film which, unlike its live-action counterparts, is an in-continuity movie (set between Resident Evil 4 and the upcoming Resident Evil 5). The opening of the movie shows us what the Resident Evil world is like — the United States government has nuked one of their own cities because illegal research by the Umbrella Corporation led to a zombie outbreak. Now-defunct Umbrella’s research has fallen into the hands of bio-terrorists who unleash the T-virus around the globe causing outbreaks quickly squelched by the WilPharma Corporation and their vaccines.
WilPharma is headquartered in Harvardville — somewhere along the US’s east coast. When Senator Ron Davis lands at Harvardville Airport he is confronted by protestors seeking to disrupt his meeting with with the suspicious biotech company. Protestors in zombie masks accost him leading to a reveal that the airport is the scene of the latest bioterror attack — perpetrated perhaps by Dr. Curtis Miller — a suspected terrorist connected to the events in the first Resident Evil game.
Conveniently veteran Resident Evil character Claire Redfield is on hand to rescue the senator and defend the airport survivors until Presidentially sanctioned zombie hunter, Leon S. Kennedy, arrives. Then the movie turns into a Resident Evil 2 reunion special following the characters through a familiar storyline set against new backdrops — which is the movie’s biggest flaw.
Instead of accomplishing something new, Degeneration feels like it was stamped out from a Resident Evil template, pitting its characters against waves of zombies until they reach the inevitable boss battle. It so faithfully follows a pre-existing structure that it hardly matters if we’re following Chris or Claire Redfield as they fight T- or G-virus monsters unleashed by Umbrella or WilPharma.
Where the movie could have been redeemed is through its visuals, but when a long take of an office building’s interior is served as a centerpiece it’s difficult to be wowed. The fact that Degeneration’s character models don’t look better than those found in most current games does little to convince the viewer that they aren’t sitting through an unskippable cutscene. There’s something particularly unsettling about the lifeless eyes the characters have. So much so that I now have great pity for the main character in Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart.
On February 12th, 2009 at 2:05 pm, Jason wrote:
Great review. Couldn’t agree more.
http://late2thegame.blogspot.com/2009/02/netflix-queue-review-resident-evil_10.html