Resident Evil: Damnation

• Directed by Makoto Kamiya
• October 27, 2012

Voice Cast

• Leon S. Kennedy-Matthew Mercer (voice) / Kevin Dorman (motion capture)
• Buddy / Alexander “Sasha” Kozachenko-Dave Wittenberg (voice) / David Earnest (motion capture)
• Ada Wong-Courtenay Taylor (voice) / Jolene Andersen (motion capture)
• Svetlana Belikova-Wendee Lee (voice) / Melinda Lee (motion capture)
• JD-Val Tasso (voice) / Val Tasso (motion capture)
• Ataman/Ivan Judanovich-Robin Sachs (voice) / Kirk Thornton (motion capture)
• Ingrid Hunnigan-Salli Saffioti (voice) / Jolene Andersen (motion capture)

A special agent goes against the orders of his superiors and works to destroy biological weapons being used in a European warzone.

I often complain about CGI animation. It does not age well and the animation in Resident Evil: Damnation is no exception to that. It looks like better than most cut scene animation from a videogame but what we see currently is not movie worthy in my opinion. I will complain until the day I die about CGI film animation because it is rare that it withstands the test of time. More often than not it ages rather poorly.

From what I know of the Resident Evil games, this is much closer to what you find in the games than what was found in the live action Resident Evil movies. Truthfully it makes me wonder how the Resident Evil games became so popular. There are plenty of shoot-‘em-ups where you can kill monsters and this makes them look like nothing special but that is a discussion for another time.

The story is okay but keeping with the cut scene theme it has all the intensity and general engagement of the story handed to you in a in a videogame cut scene. Some are better than others but most are just setups to get to the next section of the game. And that is what I am left with feeling while I watched this: I should be prepping to start tapping buttons on my controller to get to the next game boss.

The dialogue is okay but does nothing to get you to care about the characters or build the story. I felt rather indifferent when people died or story elements occurred. I am not saying I should have broken down into tears or anything but all I got could muster was a simple “Oh…” Buddy’s fate should have felt tragic, but I felt nothing.

The plot seems a little convoluted. I understand we are dealing with all sorts of weird science fiction stuff, but it just feels unnecessarily complicated. We have an Eastern European country and power-hungry people and secret alliances and backstabbing. That is a good chunk to put in to an hour plus of movie. Sometimes in the correct hands it can work well but not here.

The action scenes in Resident Evil: Damnation are great. I cannot fault them there on that. But well-done action scenes do not make a great movie. You need a good story at least and the story here is only just okay. It feels like a one-off adventure in a television series meant to stretch out the season and not a movie story.

If you are a fan of the Resident Evil games, I am sure you will like Resident Evil: Damnation. But beyond that I think you can skip it.