Nerd Mentality

Baiohazâdo Dijenerêshon

Posted December 8th 2008 by kino.

Resident Evil: Degeneration is the new RE movie produced by Sony Pictures and Capcom. Unlike its embarrassing live-action predecessors, this 97 minute long CG movie is a direct continuation of the events from Shinji Mikami's famous game series. Set seven years after the Raccoon City Incident that started it all, the movie stars returning Resident Evil 2 survivors Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield.

The pretext of a story at work here is a bit flimsy; Bio-terrorists, pharmaceutical corporations (Umbrella, WilPharma and the mysterious TriCell) and the US government are all tied together in a conspiracy imbroglio. Claire is now part of some NGO and conveniently happens to be on the premises of another T-Virus outbreak, and Leon is again sent by Washington to do his thing, encountering on his way a rather... well, uninteresting love interest.

Still, even as a "a 90-minute-long videogame cut scene" (unflatteringly quoted from Wired's Chris Kohler), RE: D easily kicks the ass of the three Milla Jovovich starring abominations, as an enjoyable, canonical Bio Hazard zombie flick. From its very first act, the movie grabs the user into a ballet of slow-motion shootings, explosions and choreographic undead tail-kicking. As a RE story would not be complete without a super mutated zombie boss, WilPharma's ultra high-tech research facility fortunately happens to host a G-Virus sample, the same stain that infected William Birkin in RE2. A good part of the movie is then spent running away from, then fighting the creature, classically culminating in an underground showdown and escaping self destruct sequences. No, that wasn't really a spoiler and you know it, stop whining.

Both the motion capture and voice acting is about what you'd expect from the series, so fans will be in familiar territory, and haters won't have their opinions changed. The producers somehow managed to make Leon into a real badass, so you won't see us complaining.

The facial animation is more of a mixed bag, as protagonists have the unfortunate tendency to look like expressionless dolls. Hair physics are also a little off on some characters. On the other hand, the camera work and special effects (especially fire) are all very dynamic and convincing, sometimes bordering on impressive.

RE: D ties into Resident Evil 5 by succinctly introducing TriCell Pharmaceutical Company. It's not very subtle nor clever, but we'll take what we can in anticipation of the series' fifth opus. Resident Evil: Degeneration will be available on DVD on December 27th in the US.

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