Resident Evil : Degeneration - The Good, The Bad, and The What the hell is that!?

Anyone who reads our blog, i.e. no one, knows exactly how I felt about Dead Space: Downfall. It left a sour taste in my mouth that only copious amounts of blood and gore could fill. In addition to that, now, it nearly cost me one of the better direct to video game movie experiences of my life. I was left feeling so icky by it that I very nearly neglected to give Resident Evil: Degeneration a shot. What a shame that would have been!

Resident Evil is a long standing series of good horror games that has somehow mutated into an amazing action game. This latest installment was a fully CG movie that followed the continuing adventures of the main character from both RE2 and 4, Leon S. Kennedy, or as he shall henceforth be known, Badass S. Badasserson. The film also takes the female lead from 2, Claire Redfield, and inserts her next to him again. As a sort of reunion of two characters I love of old, it was nice. That aside, the movie was just FUN.

It begins in an airport when Claire, who is now a member of an anti-bioengineering group, arrives, presumably to harass or otherwise inconvenience an arriving senator thought to be behind the nuking of Racoon City years earlier. Shortly thereafter, as with everywhere Claire has EVER gone outside of the bathroom, zombies attack. This new spread of the ever dangerous T-virus is immediately viewed as terrorism by the U.S. Government, who send in their ultimate weapon: Badass S. Badasserson himself, armed with a pistol and a stylish leather jacket. The movie quickly explodes from there into a nonstop action extravaganza of exploding heads, flying limbs, and the constant yelling of the words "Aim for the head!" Fans of Claire will be happy to hear that, as is traditional, she catches a gun in a physically improbable way at the last second to shoot an enemy.

The villain was actually one of the most well made in the series, having a clear motivation for once. Usually, RE villains either leave me confused and wishing I knew what the hell was going on (Wesker) or laughing at their countless silly voices (every other villain, most notably the inexplicable French midget in 4). The only scary villains are the ones with absolutely NO attempt at a story, i.e. Mr. X and the Nemisis.

I'm finding it difficult to continue typing here, as I don't want to give anything away, and if the movie has one major flaw, its not having a whole lot to hide. It was very straightforward, start to finish, without much of a plot to speak of. The only other problem I have with it is a lack of monsters. The only creatures involved were the zombies, and one big G-Virus critter, ala William Birkin from 2. To me, the games hav never felt like zombie games so much as monster games where one of the possible monsters to fight is zombies, but that could just be me.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that if you are a fan of Resident Evil, you will greatly enjoy this movie. It has monsters, silly action scenes, bad dialogue, and just enough absurdity to keep you from taking yourself too seriously. It's classic RE, in all its warped glory, and it has me chomping at the bit for Resident Evil 5. Enjoy.

Five out of Five Shambling Corpses