Resident Evil: Damnation Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: Leon Kennedy travels to the fictional country of the "East Slavic Republic" to investigate uses of bio-organic weapons.

Review: I didn't want to touch on the RE franchise for awhile after how stupid "Retribution" was, but since this is one of the animated films and just came out of nowhere, I thought I'd give it a shot. Eh, it is a hit or miss the whole way through; sometimes it is fun and engaging, other times I'm just wondering why the hell is anything even happening. The first, and probably best, thing you will notice about this film is the amazing animation. There were times when the backgrounds looked so real and this impressed me a lot. The characters look great too, but they aren't as standout as the buildings and landscape. As with "RE: Retribution" I love me some Ada Wong. She's not as smokin' hot as Li Bingbing, but she looks better than she does in the games which is saying a lot; they put her in an attractive outfit seemingly on purpose and to my immature delight! It was also nice to see Leon return to form as the hero I like rather than that pitiful interpretation from "Retribution." Although, he is armed to the teeth yet is okay with practically giving away his arsenal to some punkass kid who steals it early on? Luckily they managed to turn that punkass kid from a wannabe Jar Jar to a character I was kind of sad gets killed. There is some nice banter between Ada and Leon (as usual), but I wish they would just get together instead of leaving it up in the air. I mean they keep pretending they don't like each other even though they got so close in RE2, and they keep saving each other when they could easily let the person die so get on with it! The main villain's plot is where the majority of problems lie as it is convoluted and feels empty. Some made up country is using BOWs in a civil war and Leon is trying to get to the heart of the matter. This is a decent enough set up, but then we get some nonsense about the resistance are infecting themselves to control some of the iconic monsters from the franchise like Lickers. Meanwhile the president of the country is a wannbe dictator who keeps indicating she has something up her sleeves, but there is never a payoff. This president has some underground research base with Tyrants at her disposal which made me think she would transform herself at the end into some big monster for a cool final battle...but nope. I would say this is a wasted opportunity which is further exasperated by the mild implication that the government was supplying the rebels with BOWs for no discernable reason. The ending felt cheap too because right when Leon is about to die the army just shows up to save the day and end the reign of the president. It kind of defeated the purpose of the film. I suppose this film was just meant to set up some events leading into the upcoming Resident Evil 6 video game, so I can forgive some shoddy writing as this is mere promotional material. This film was better than most of the live-action films, but it is still mostly a mediocre film. The animation is incredible, the characters are great, and the action is decent, but the story is weak, pacing could use some work, and it just lacked that extra oomph to make it memorable. RE fans should definitely give it a watch, but the unfamiliar should pass on it or those looking for a fix after watching "Retribution."

Notable Moment: When Ada fights against the president of the country and discovers she is quite the capable fighter.

Final Rating: 6/10