Facebook
Twitter
Google
Reddit
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
MySpace
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Digg
CHICAGO – Excelsior! Comic book legend Stan Lee’s famous exclamation puts a fine point on the third and final play of Mark Pracht’s FOUR COLOR TRILOGY, “The House of Ideas,” presented by and staged at City Lit Theater in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. For tickets/details, click HOUSE OF IDEAS.
Blu-Ray Review: ‘Resident Evil: Degeneration’ Dead on Arrival
Submitted by BrianTT on December 31, 2008 - 12:15pm
Printer-friendly version
E-mail page to friend
PDF version
‘Resident Evil: Degeneration’ is released by Sony Pictures Home Video and features voice work from Alyson Court, Paul Mercier, Laura Bailey, and Roger Craig Smith. It was written by Shotaro Suga and directed by Makoto Kamiya. It was released on December 27th, 2008.
See our 31-image “Resident Evil 5” video game slideshow.
Read our “Resident Evil: Extinction” theatrical review.
Printer-friendly versionE-mail page to friendPDF version
CHICAGO – Instead of playing one of the most anticipated games of the last few years, “Resident Evil 5,” fans of one of gamings most influential franchises are being asked to watch what is essentially a 96-minute cut scene that serves as a prequel or appetizer for what is to come in 2009.
Not as much fun as the Milla Jovovich movies and not nearly as well-conceived or written as the games, “Degeneration” feels like an afterthought, stuck between the world of the movie trilogy and the world of some of the best games ever made. Without the B-movie charm of the former or the blockbuster action of the latter, “Resident Evil: Degeneration” ends up as the last thing fans of the “RE” movies or games usually think of their beloved franchise, forgettable.
The most remarkable thing about “Degeneration” is how disposable the entire affair feels from the very beginning. The CGI visuals aren’t as impressive as they should or could have been and look much less refined than more recently produced computer-generated films. I honestly am more impressed by the visuals in the preview for the “Resident Evil 5” game or the cut scenes in recent titles like “Call of Duty: World at War” or “Metal Gear Solid 4” than the majority of “Degeneration”.
If “Degeneration” had any chance of working, it needed to look absolutely remarkable. Instead, the facial features are flat, movement looks stuff, the character designs are boring, and even the motion-capture material looks about ten years out of date. In extreme darkness, the action works, but I was constantly reminded of the film’s lackluster aesthetic, something one never wants to consider if they’re trying to get into a zombie action film.
 |
“Degeneration” opens with Claire Redfield trying to move on after the events of Raccoon City and the nefarious dealings of the Umbrella Corporation. She happens to be in an airport when all zombie hell breaks loose, including the most effective shot in the movie, a plane full of zombies crashing into the terminal. Enter the legendary Leon Kennedy, another Raccoon City survivor, to help the survivors escape the infested airport.
The opening scenes - the airplane crash, Leon’s entry into it - feel like a model for a game that was never made. The urge to pick up the controller and help Leon stop the dead guy trying to eat his neck will be powerful, especially for people watching the Blu-Ray on a PS3.
The action-driven, cut-scene approach to storytelling could have potentially worked for the entirety of “Resident Evil: Degeneration” but the script falls apart after its effective opening, concentrating on organizations tied into the T-Virus and the more powerful G-Virus. Bluntly, “Degeneration” follows its own title and becomes too boring to justify its existence. The lack of a single memorable line of dialogue or interesting voice work doesn’t help.
“Resident Evil: Degeneration” is presented in 1080p HD with an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. A CGI film on Blu-Ray should look visually flawless and there’s certainly nothing wrong with the transfer of “Degeneration”. It’s not as memorable as recent Pixar or DreamWorks animated presentations, but it’s certainly not as disappointing. The lossless 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track is even more impressive. Naturally, this is a film with a lot of explosions, screams, and moaning zombies. An effective audio track makes a world of difference.
The two most interesting special features on the Blu-Ray release of “Degeneration” are an interactive picture-in-picture feature that allows fans to watch animatics, motion capture footage, or storyboards as the film plays, and a trivia track. One of Blu-Ray’s most impressive features as a format is the ability to learn more about the film than just listening to a commentary. It’s nice to see “Degeneration” and Sony take advantage of that potential.
An HD featurette called “The Generation of Degeneration” offers a half-hour look at the development of the project and the package is nicely rounded out by voice bloopers, a faux Leon interview, trailers, character profiles, and BD-Live, but the real draw for those of us counting the days until the release of “Resident Evil 5” is the supposed special footage of that game.
Wouldn’t it have been amazing if Sony and Capcom had thought to include a demo or something brand new to connect “Degeneration” and the game? Nope. All we get is the trailer from the 2008 Tokyo Game Show and a general trailer. They’re both awesome and my anticipation for that game grows daily, but it feels like a wasted opportunity to do more to tie this release to it. Kind of like the movie itself.
See our 31-image “Resident Evil 5” video game slideshow.Read our “Resident Evil: Extinction” theatrical review. | By BRIAN TALLERICO |
“Not as much fun as the
“Not as much fun as the Milla Jovovich movies”
….
ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This movie was a lot better than those awful live action movie.
Res Degen
Res Evil Deneration is better than the other films. atleast it follows the story of the game. the other films have nothing to do with the game (apart from the name and jill valentines name) the original films where a joke in the res evil series, i have never play a res evil game were can fly kick dogs in the head and super clever computers controlling zombies.
Degeneration stays true the game. any proper fan of the res evil games will enjoy degeneration.
“Wouldn’t it have been
“Wouldn’t it have been amazing if Sony and Capcom had thought to include a demo or something brand new to connect “Degeneration” and the game?”
Actually they did. At the end of the movie you see researcher from the biotech company Tricell taking samples of the G-virus Tyrant. Tricell is the same company that appears in Resident Evil 5.
Watch the end of the movie and the RE5 trailers again and you’ll catch it.
Horrible Review
By far one of the worst reviews I have read in my life….
How can you hold a straight-to-dvd film to the same standards as a Pixar $100 million+ film…what have you been smoking? Better yet, stop eating lead paint chips if you honestly think the Milla Jovovich films were “good fun”…they were horrible movies that were barely entertaining and did a terrible disservice to any hardcore RE fan. You my friend are a moron with a blog…
Time to be mean
The reviewer that has given this monkey butt sucking review is obviously stuck frozen in time. When it comes to videogaming, the only ones who may stand a chance in speaking up for the fans may be g4, screwattack etc. However when an outsider dares venture into territory where the nerd, otaku’s and guru’s rule, do them a favor and gee tee eff ohh before the 1337 people get you.
personal thoughts of degeneration
The storyline of this movie is perfect compared to the live action movies. personally the live actions killed it without the mentioning of the real creator of the T-virus, Dr. James Marcus. (mainly it was an alternative idea on how the T-virus how was created). The movie takes place a year later after Leon saved the presidents daughter from Los Iluminados in Spain. The graphics werent the best but the sound was awesome. This is a true movie for resident evil die hard fans. People who only care about the graphics on a cgi movie and do not understand the games, would only care about the live action movies. this movie represents a lot of similarities with Resident Evil 2 and fits in the Resident Evil Timeline. Some people that i know call this Resident Evil 4.5. you can say this is a little bit of a back story for Resident Evil 5.
What i loved about this movie is that Leon says to Claire when they meet, (get down) came from how they met in RE2. The G-virus was caught perfectly as it was in the game when William Birkin, creator of the G-virus used it on himself. You can also see flashbacks of Claire and Leon while they were trying to survive in the raccoon city disaster.
I give this movie a 5/5 for the following reasons:
The graphics looked like the ones in RE2 and RE4.
Continued with the Resident evil timeline.
Used quotes from the previous games as well as flashbacks.
The sounds were perfect with a great storyline.
Most characters had an important role in the movie.
Before people let you decide if the movie was good or not, see it for yourself. personally i liked it over the live action movies.
I have to agree with the reviewer.
I remember playing RE2 way back in 1999 and being mesmorized by the characters, particularly Leon and Claire. When I saw this sitting in the New section of my local video rental store, I was like, “OH MY GOD I NEED TO SEE THIS NOW GIVE TO ME I’M RENTING IT!” I was THAT excited. But short of Leon and Claire’s escape from the airport, this movie completely disappointed me.
It was partly the story and partly the portrayal of the characters that disappointed me. The story’s timing is ill-paced and feels thrown together in some logical order—it reminded me of the “Seperate Ways” mini-game in RE4. Difference is, SW is a mini-game and RED is a movie. Makes me think they should’ve just made this into another mini-game, maybe a downloadable one. As for the characters, the only two I really found interesting were Claire and Angela (and trust me, my interest in the latter stopped the nanosec the movie started pairing her up with Leon). Even Leon failed to capture my attention. Even in scenes where he’s supposed to take the lead. I think it’s because his portrayal is that of any other cliched fantasy thriller superhero armed with a gun instead of who RE fans know him as: the naive, enthusiastic, gullible idealist in RE2 who becomes confident and cocky but somewhat guarded in RE4. This movie takes place a year after RE4—somehow the guy’s gone from cracking cheesy one-liners every five seconds in the face of villians to barely cracking a smile. He’s emotionless…and while the last we saw him in the games, he’d become more hard since his days—rather DAY—in the RPD, he wasn’t a robot. I think the scene that bothered me most with this portrayal was when he and Claire reunited…he didn’t even look SORT OF glad to see her, even though they’ve kept in contact for seven years.
But in an optomistic light, this movie is much better than any of the live-action movies with Milla Jovovich. At least this movie got Claire right!