Biohazard: Vendetta

Resident Evil Vendetta. What to say about this movie?

This is one of the worst Resident Evil/BIOHAZARD related media I've ever had the displeasure of witnessing.

Just so you know before going into this movie (if you want to), it's suggested you play the mainline Resident Evil series (that being 1-6, the Revelations side games, 0 and CODE:Veronica).

Now, onto the review.

The story is hot garbage. Honestly the worst story in the series, not including the Anderson films.

So, you got 3 main characters. Chris 'Boulder' Redfield, Rebecca 'OH NO' Chambers and Leon 'NWF' Kennedy. Chris is a member of the BSAA, the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance, and ... he is going in as an observer with a Mexican military group, as the main villain Glenn 'Totally Not Billy Coen' Aries has situated himself in the lush forests of Mexico.

Now, this first scene has been given a pass by a lot of people I know and a lot of reviewers, and I can't understand why. For a start, it's another Trevor inspired mansion for some reason, but then there's also the fact that the Mexican military, living in a world where it has been almost 20 years since Raccoon City got nuked and Bioterrorism became a thing, are asking people with blood on their mouths if they're okay, and are surprised when they're zombies.

Long story short, Mexican military gets decimated, Chris jumps out a window on the second floor and runs into out main villain who thoroughly hands Chris his disassembled rifle on a platter. The issue with this is, that Chris, according to the Vendetta novel, is supposed to be injured in this scene, which is why Glenn can take him on. But Chris isn't visibly injured in the movie and they never make not of it, making this a weird scene to watch, as Chris has beaten Wesker senseless in RE5 and punched a boulder without destroying his hands.

Now, I'll just highlight scenes I took issue with from this point on. There's the big meme, which is Glenn's wedding, which is shot like a comedy scene, there's the many scenes with "Bane" as I'll call him, and I just can't take that guy seriously, cause I keep expecting him to pick Chris up and break him over his leg.

Then there's the infamous highway chase scene. By God this scene. Leon, with all his love for America, humanity and society as a whole, decides to speed down a highway with Cerburi(?) chasing him (which is weird because the STARS team in RE1 managed to outrun a pack of them, how they can keep up with motorcycles and outrun vans on the highway is beyond me), and he proceeds to kill them, yes, but the way he kills them results in the death of many commuters who clearly weren't infected with the A-Virus. They certainly aren't coming back with the magic serum they dump at the end.

There's the homage scene to John Wick in the hall, which would be impressive if it was actual people and not CG, and there's the Chris v Glenn fight where entire magazines are shot off in close range and nobody gets hit.

And finally, the big fight at the end, which has more collateral damage thanks to out main characters. Glenn gets merged with Bane (it's not a spoiler, it's in the first trailer), and again, at close range, some BSAA chick in a helicopter shoots at him with a bloody RAIL CANNON and she MISSES. And not just a small mistake where it goes off into the distance, no, she takes out four buildings in the process and only slightly cuts Blane's (that's what I'm calling him now) neck.

Big fight scene with motorcycles brought to you by Ducatti, and the movie ends with magic serum making everybody better (except the people who got eaten by their husband or something like that).

The worst part about this story is the fact that this should've been the best of the CG movies. It had Chris and Leon reuniting after the events of 6, Rebecca returning for the first time since BIOHAZARD the Stage (which really wasn't that long ago), and a villain connected with Umbrella and utilizing the resources of Tricell and Neo Umbrella. Should've been better than the long haired guy and fat business man from Degeneration or some old woman from Damnation that the MCs have little to no connection to.

But they messed it up. This movie had me looking back at the redeeming points of bloody Revelations. There's also the fact that half the plot is in the novel, like Leon's team getting betrayed (which is cut from the movie).

Story is 1/10 overall.

The art is passable. I personally don't like it and much prefer the designs of the Chris and Leon from RE6. I'll say it's more true to Chris than RE7, but that's not saying much. Also, the art director had a weird fetish for woman's arms getting blown off.

Sound is good, both English Dubbed and Subbed.

Characters are trash. I'll only talk about the returning ones.

Chris has stagnated since the end of 6, only being here to help Leon, same with Rebecca, she's just kind of there.

Leon has repeated Chris' story in RE6 and has officially become a psychopath thanks to the highway scene. I hate this movie so much.

It's enjoyable if you turn your brain off.

Overall 3/10, avoid unless you are invested in this series like me. Can't believe I fell for the hype, I thought after Heavenly Island, the side content would finally have interesting stories, but Vendetta sure proved me wrong.

Please Capcom, just greenlight another RE manga with Jill or a prequel with Piers.

A few preliminary items:
If you are unfamiliar with the Resident Evil franchise and its characters this film will not clarify anything for you.
If you are hoping for a horror film, this is not that film. It is a pure action thriller with mild horror elements most of which are in the first 20 minutes of the film.
If you want to see something that has mindless enjoyable action and lots of stuff blowing up, this film is for you.

Vendetta is a perfect popcorn movie. Its well paced, well acted, and there's a solid mix of action and plot setting. If you were able to see ... it in a theatre with Dolby Atmos sound all the better because the sound design was really stellar.

That said there are a few major issues with the film. The story is very weak, there is little depth and I often found myself stifling laughter during scenes which were meant to be dramatic but came off as high camp. The uncanny valley is very much at play here and while the models look good for the most part the textures are eerily off especially glass objects and wood (which shines so brightly it seems like a thousand maids had polished it for a thousand years). The level of animation is not as good as something like Gantz: O but it still (mostly) visually pleasing and well done.

An enjoyable experience if you want to sit back, relax, and turn your brain off for a couple hours.

The plot is basically a mash up of most RE games up to now. You've got a mansion (RE1), arcade shooting, and OTT action (RE6). The story is ofcourse absurd and has quite a few plotholes, but you won't mind too much.

This movie isn't too scary, though I suppose RE hadn't focused on this aspect recently up until RE7 came out. There's really only one scene near the beginning that is horrific but even then I found myself laughing at the setup. This movie is more for fans of the RE6 action-horror setup.

The CGI ranges between bad and pretty okay. A few scenes ... look very PS3-ish in terms of quality, while others, especially a few of the action scenes, look adequate enough. Mostly the CGI probably won't bother you.

There isn't much music to speak of, but the English dub cast all do a solid job. I particularly liked Rebecca's voice actress.

Resident Evil: Vendetta is overall an entertaining way to spend two hours if you've played RE before. Anyone who hasn't won't get much out of this film.