Resident Evil: Vendetta

12/22/2017 07:38

Film: Resident Evil: Vendetta

Year: 2017

Director: Takanori Tsujimoto

Writer: Makoto Fukami

Starring: Kevin Dorman, Matthew Mercer and Erin Cahill

 

Review:

This animated film begins in a room. Leon S. Kennedy, who is voiced by Matthew Mercer, is walking slowly with his gun drawn. A body bag moves and he shoots it.

We then shift to an airplane over Mexico. There are a group of Special Forces on it. They are hutting down a man named Glenn Arias. He is a weapons dealer that takes advantage of countries that are at war and uses B.O.W.s or Bio-Organic Weapons. The expert on dealing with these on this operation is Chris Redfield, voiced by Kevin Dorman. He fills them in on what they can expect. Their mission is to capture Arias as well as locate an undercover agent and her son.

They come to a mansion and check it out. They do not find anything at first. A group goes into a bedroom where they find something under the covers. It turns out to be a pillow and a remote controlled truck. The wheels start to move periodically. Behind them they find a boy. He walks slow and doesn’t talk. It turns out he is a zombie and attacks.

This draws Redfield. There are more under the bed and they take one of the soldiers from his group. The soldiers who came in first are turned. Redfield and another in his group get out of the room when a grenade is dropped inside. This blows them away. The other soldier was bit and turns in front of Redfield. They fight until he jumps out of the window.

Outside Redfield comes face to face with Arias, voiced by John DeMita. The two of them fight and Arias gets the upperhand when he takes Redfield’s sidearm and shoots him in the back with it. We then learn that this virus used is much better than the T-Virus. The mother they were looking for is a zombie and she ignores Arias. She goes for Redfield. We meet Arias’ two henchmen, named Diego Gomez who is voiced by Fred Tatasciore and Maria Gomez voiced by Cristina Valenzuela. Diego is a giant man with a steel mask and cuffs on his arms. He uses a mini-gun where Maria wears a black leather suit with a deep V. The helicopter comes to save Redfield as the only survivor.

We then shift to a quick scene of Arias at a wedding when a drone drops a smart bomb on it. He survives though. It then shifts to Chicago where Rebecca Chambers, voiced by Erin Cahill, is working on a cure for this new virus that is springing up around the Great Lakes area. Their computer is smart enough to analyze and then create vaccines. Her laboratory is attacked though and zombies start to take over it. We see Maria releasing a gas. Chambers has to improvise to kill them with whatever she can. She is infected with the virus and tests the vaccine to it. It works and she is then saved by Redfield.

They then head to Colorado where they meet up with Kennedy. He is drowning himself in booze and not interested in helping them. We also learn that the opening scene of the film was a failed operation due to someone giving away intel. He is still dealing with this. That guy actually shows up there and Kennedy attacks him. They are cut short when Maria and Diego show up. Chambers is kidnapped and Diego shoots up the place with his mini-gun. Kennedy and Redfield decide to go save Chambers and stop Arias, which will take them to New York City, the place of the next attack.

Why does Arias want Chambers? Is it for her research, her mind or something else? Can the attack on New York be stopped?

I wanted to lead off stating that I was a huge fan of the Resident Evil games in the beginning as well as the live action films until they kept going on and getting less like the games. The animated films are interesting to me, because they do feel a lot like the games still which I like. The story of this one seems fairly plausible in this universe. I really liked that the mansion they go to in the beginning of this is just like the original game. I also liked the homage when Chambers sees a zombie eating a corpse before it looks at her, which came from the original game as well. The story isn’t too deep, but a film like this it doesn’t have to be. It is more about the animation and the creatures they feature.

Acting is hard to judge in this one or I’ll make this a combo of the voices done and animation itself. First off, I had no issues with any of the voice actors. They are all believable and fit the character they were supposed to be. I was highly impressed how far animation has come as well, because there were times that I was questioning if what I was seeing was real or not it was that good. Now there were other times when the mouths look funny trying to annunciate some words, but I can’t blame the film too much for that. Some of the action is over the top and unrealistic, but since this is an animated film, regardless if it is real or not, you will have that.

The editing of the film was fine, being that it is animated they kind of have to go together. I liked the creatures they had in this. Coming in you know there will be zombies, but I also like that they incorporated the dogs, even though in this one they made them super strong and powerful. I wasn’t a huge fan of that. You also know that the main bad guy is going to superhuman or damn close to it, which you have that as well. I also liked that it kept with the games having a ‘tyrant’ or a super boss at the end which also is featured in this film. The soundtrack was good as well, keeping the tone that the games do by getting upbeat during fight scenes and none during disposition.

Now I would recommend this film if you are really into Resident Evil the games or the animated films that have been coming out. This is the third in that series and I felt it was pretty well done. The story is very much like something you’d find in the games. The animation looked great most of the time and the voice acting was solid. The editing of the film was fine. There are some creatures you’ll recognize from the games and the soundtrack helped set the scenes. This one could actually be watched on its own and I put it being better than Degeneration but Damnation was still better to me. This is an above average film, so keep that in mind. This is much more targeted for fans of the games and series.

 

My Rating: 6 out of 10