Here we go again...


So for Christmas, I finally couldn’t say no to a 20 dollar price tag on Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition and picked it up to play over break. After carving a bloody swath through rural Europe (and having an absolute blast while doing it), I was walking through Blockbuster desperate to find something to watch other than Ryan Seacrest’s annoyingly-perky mug on New Year’s Eve. Then lo and behold I spotted Resident Evil: Degeneration nestled in the “New Releases” section. Even though RE4 was the first in the series that I’ve actually played, I figured I knew enough about the back story already to watch the movie without being too lost. So here’s a review of the straight-to-DVD CG film.

First of all, all Hollywood directors take notice: THIS is how you do a proper movie adaptation of a video game franchise. Forget Mila Jovovitch, they claimed that those RE movies took place in the same timeline as the games, but after a bit, it was probably clear that they should be treated as a separate entity.



Bad girl! No Canon continuity for you!


Not this movie, it fits so snugly into the plot of the game (as far as I know) that if you just slapped a few action commands in the fight sequences, you could very well have released this as a sort-of spin-off video game of its own. Of course, it helps that Capcom and the animation teams behind RE4 (if I remember correctly) pretty much made this movie on their own without executive meddling.

Degeneration opens up with a brief documentary-style explanation of the events that have transpired the seven years since the fall of the Umbrella Corporation, using fake news broadcasts about the destruction of Raccoon City and the rise of Bioterrorism events afterwards, as well as the emergence of two new global pharmaceutical companies somehow involved in all this – WilPharma and TriCell. After this introduction, we’re introduced to Claire Redfield who has just arrived at an airport, and is working for the WHO or some sort of non-govermental organization investigating WilPharma, which has been accused of running unethical experiments on people using the T-Virus. These accusations are also tied to a US Senator who is arriving in that same airport.



Moments before all Hell breaks loose.


Of course, this means that all the pieces are aligned for when the shit hits the fan and zombies start attacking. Claire, the senator, and a few other characters are trapped in the airport by the horde of undead. So the SWAT team – excuse me, Special Response Team (SRT) is called in to control the situation, along with a mysterious “specialist” sent by the White House. Anybody who has been keeping up with the series immediately knows that means, of course, Leon Kennedy.



Or, as I call him, the freaking Jack Bauer of zombie invasions.


Ah, Leon Kennedy. After playing through RE4, he’s probably the character I know the most background about, and thus he’s the one that I have the most to complain about as well. You see the picture of him on the front of the box for the movie?



Exhibit A.


Get used to that face, because he never changes expressions throughout the entire movie. Not once. Now, he’s already kicking ass and taking names in RE4, but when appearing in this movie, a few years after that incident, he apparently has taken a few more levels in badass. Unfortunately it also seems to come at the expense of any character depth he might have had. He just spends the majority of the movie rescuing the other two female leads and serving as Mr. Exposition when the big conspiracy starts to unravel. This would be somewhat excusable if he only appeared in a few parts, seeing as the plot itself doesn’t focus on his character very much at all, but he’s in so much of the movie that it becomes really hard to look past.

Surprisingly though, with such a major zombie-slaying badass featured in the movie (and Claire gets a few good moments in herself) those expecting just a big survival situation with zombie shooting for the entire movie might be a bit disappointed. The airport outbreak scenes barely take up a third of the movie, and the rest of it focuses more on one of the SRT members and her brother who is involved with some shady dealings which might include the conspiracy behind the airport outbreak.



"And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"


While this plot is actually surprisingly well-constructed with some genuine twists and surprising reveals (And this coming from a person who yells out every TV Trope she recognizes and predicts the plot from the first fifteen minutes of the movie.) But there just isn’t enough action throughout to keep the movie from dragging in some parts. This is probably the biggest flaw in the movie – too much talking, not enough zombie heads going ‘asplodey. Although, to be fair, the action scenes that are featured are engaging, and the boss fight at the end is pretty intense. But it would've been nicer to see those action sequences spread out over more of the movie's running time, instead of just bunched together in two parts. It would've jacked up the tension throughout more of the scenes, instead of just building at the beginning, almost completely dissapearing in the middle, and then jumping back at the end.

Moving away from the story though, one of the first things I noticed regarding the movie was the great animation throughout it. Some of the shots look downright photorealistic, and even the animated characters are really well done, with lots of visual detail. The graphic design team behind Degeneration clearly put a lot of effort into this movie.


Showoffs.


The only complaint I have regarding it is that some of the facial expressions and lip syncing are off somewhat, but it hardly detracts from the overall movie as much as some other issues I mentioned.

So overall, for a 90-minute, straight-to-DVD release, I really enjoyed it. It had a well-written plot that left plenty of openings for a sequel (or possibly to segue into RE5?), engaging action sequences, and great animation and voice acting, but some of the characterization and pacing holds it back from being anything other than an interesting addition to the Resident Evil mythology.

7.5/10 - I highly recommend fans of the series to check it out, but if you aren’t familiar with the backstory to begin with, this isn’t really the best place to start.