Director: Takanori Tsujimoto, Alexander Von David
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 97 minutes
Resident Evil: Vendetta (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Resident Evil, a franchise that has been going on since the PlayStation one era, recently received the ‘reboot’ treatment after the last few installments of the franchise pretty much failed to bring home good results. While we didn’t really have any problems with the fairly modern direction the games were going in, we can imagine that many gamers disliked the fact the games were heading towards an action based gameplay, rather than an authentic survival setting. That being said, even though the games may have received a reboot, the movie CG universe decided it was time to bring out one more story with the characters many have come to know and love.
The world is still dealing with the aftermath of the T-Virus, albeit not as bad as in the games where pretty much the entire world was slowly being turned into a zombie wasteland. Nonetheless, the zombie outbreak seems far but over now that a new player has entered the stage, namely a ‘death merchant’ by the name of Arias (John DeMita) has developed a new virus, the A-Virus, which creates slightly more intelligent zombies. The zombies he creates can distinguish ally and foe, and thus are perfectly programmable to serve as a great undead force. Chris Redfield (Kevin Dorman) is tasked to bring him in, but his first mission fails miserably when the rest of the team he assists suffers the same fate as those infected with the virus. Later on he calls in the help of Rebecca Chambers (Erin Cahill), as he is convinced she can help to develop a cure. A cure is already in the works, but Rebecca’s lab is also under attack by Arias, but luckily she is the sole survivor, thanks to Chris’ timely intervention.
At the beginning of the movie Arias’ motives become clear quite fast, showing you his ploy is all about revenge after the government bombed his wedding, killing his bride and his family and friends. Leon S. Kennedy (Matthew Mercer) soon also enters the fray, creating a great trio for the rest of this movie.
The flow of this movie might not be what you expect of a Resident Evil type flick, as it’s more about story development rather than raw action. Nonetheless, the story follows a good buildup, it sheds a proper light on the villain of this movie and his motives. Of course this might disappoint fans who were looking for some good old fashioned zombie action where guts would be flying all over the place. Luckily the film incorporates a decent amount of shorter, but impressive fights, albeit with a somewhat odd end fight at the end of the movie. The villain of this movie also feels a bit relatable and not purely evil, as he somewhat has a reason for wanting to inflict a great deal of pain to the world.
We liked the style of the movie and while Resident Evil: Vendetta doesn’t really have the same qualitative feel as the recent Final Fantasy movie, most of the animations were done in a realistic fashion. It only felt like minor characters were a lot rougher around the edges, some environments looked a bit lifeless and the overhaul of Chris Redfield was pretty horrible. We don’t really understand why they changed his iconic appearance to the one used in this movie.
Acting performances, as far as they go in a CG animated movie, are quite solid and convincible. The lines are brought with a proper conviction, even though the English voice acting doesn’t always properly match the lip syncing of the animations, which can be a bother to some. Overall it’s all about the four characters we mentioned earlier on, safe for a few scenes where Chris’ team also serve as side-characters, who also put down decent performances.
As far as extras go on this Blu-ray edition of Vendetta, you’ll get a few fun snippets to watch. Outside of the typical trailers and commentaries, there are short featurettes about how the movie was brought to life, how the effects were handled and how certain motion capture techniques were applied.
Conclusion
Resident Evil: Vendetta may not be the best Resident Evil related piece of work you’ll see, and even though the overall amount of action is rather lukewarm for a movie spanning more than an hour and a half, it’s still a fun flick to watch if you’re into the old Resident Evil games. Overall the movie is worth a watch, but you’ll not be blown away by both the story and the action scenes, yet the movie does add an interesting villain to the equation.
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