Since 1996 the Resident Evil franchise has grown to such a degree that now, 12 years later, it becomes very hard for the series to maintain originality and a sense of freshness. Capcom, developer of the series, realized this when creating the game Resident Evil 4, which saw a slight reboot for the franchise replacing moaning zombies with body-snatching parasites. So it is very peculiar that 3 years after this re imagining Capcom decides to make a movie that takes a step back and revisits what has been done so many times before in the Resident Evil franchise, be it games or movies. I talk of the latest Resident Evil movie Degeneration which is a CG (computer generated) movie not unlike Final Fantasy: Advent Children.
The story is pretty much what you have seen before if you have any knowledge about the franchise. The T-virus (which makes infected people into flesh-eating zombies) breaks out, this time at an air port, and the survivors have to try and get out before they are devoured by the walking dead. We are reunited with the 'stars' from the game Resident Evil 2, namely Clair Redfield and Leon S. Kennedy who will lead the group of survivors to safety as best they can.
Degeneration takes place 7 years after Raccoon City was erased from the map and continues the story (slightly) of what happened with BIO-terrorism and the Umbrella Corporation 7 years later. BIO-terrorism has become a worldly known problem and Umbrella has seemingly plummeted into bankruptcy. Sadly this is pretty much everything that this movie brings to the main storyline of the Resident Evil franchise and the rest is more or less a stand alone adventure, which would be good enough if not for some faults along the way.
Even if you ignore that the movie repeats the tired old outbreak story (twice in fact) this movie still stands out with some serious flaws. First of which is its pacing. To put it short: the movie moves too fast for its own good. 7 minutes into the movie we get the first T-virus outbreak which leaves absolutely no room for character introduction or any sense of connection to the characters on screen. here are the players, here is the disaster - now go! To pull off such a sudden jump in a movie is difficult by any standard and sadly this movie is not able to pull it off.
The characters them selves are as you would expect from a CG movie based on a game franchise. The bad guys are either fat politicians or double faced scientists with sinister motives. Clair and Leon also become caricatures of their respected roles with Leon being the mysterious secret agent and Clair the nosy protector who is out to save the innocent. Though the movie is not without its twists (be they obvious or not - up to you), there is nothing in this movie that will ever get you invested, which is the death of any movie.
Lastly I wish to put a question mark with the quality of animation presented in this movie. For me it seemed like I was watching a movie based on a upgraded version of the Resident Evil 2 game engine which means that the characters come off more as puppets being herded around more then they became characters with motives and feelings.
In the end this is a movie for the fans and if you haven't played any Resident Evil game or seen any of the movies then chances are you will probably have gone through life never knowing this movie existed, which frankly you wouldn't need to. Ultimately this is not a good movie by any means of the word, but if you are a fan of either zombies or the Resident Evil saga then it is 1 hour 33 minutes that you probably will enjoy on some level as long as you don't think too much about what you are watching.
If Capcom do wish to produce more movies like these, then by all means let them do so. They have my blessing. But I do hope they try and use this outlet to movie the saga forwards and explore stories we have not played though in games so many times before.
