Biohazard: Degeneration

"A perfectly realistic story on bio-terrorism."

Biohazard: Degeneration (aka Resident Evil: Degeneration) is the first full length CG animated film fully based upon the Resident Evil game series. Starring the hero (Leon S. Kennedy) and heroine (Claire Redfield) of Resident Evil 2 (for Play Station), Degeneration is a film much anticipated by fans. Please note that the live movie trilogy is unrelated to the games beside the borrowed character names and the fate of Raccoon City.

Story:
There are quite a bit of background story to understand if one wish to fully understand the movie. Taking place seven years after the events in Resident Evil 2 (one year ... after the event in Resident Evil 4), the demands to reveal the truth of what happened at Raccoon City continues to heat up and an extremist ended up threatening to release the T-Virus to all major cities around the globe, turning all population into zombies.

A few years after Resident Evil 2, the company responsible for the outbreak in Raccoon City (Umbrella Cooperation) was in complete ruin after their stock prices plummeted and legal proceedings against them. After the downfall of the Umbrella Cooperation, many ambitious businesses try to take over the leftover viruses invented by the company which lead to many political and social unrest. The story in this movie will be focusing on one of these companies that took over what's left of Umbrella Cooperation.

Animation:
As stated earlier, the film is fully animated in CG thus fans can expect the familiar faces to remain the same as in the games (though I find Leon's face slightly different than in Resident Evil 4).

In terms of animation quality, it is without a doubt better than the cut scenes from Resident Evil 4. But there are still much room for improvement. Take this, this, or even this for comparison, there are simply much better CG films out there. Resident Evil: Degeneration simply can't beat this level of CG.

*note* In case people are wondering, the images above are from Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO 2: Gravity of the Battlefront.

Sound:
While the ED song is nothing out of the ordinary, the sound effects in the movie is very worth mentioning. The gun fires, explosions, even the water rushing sounds are very realistic. In terms of the character voice acting, it should not be a surprise that the main voices are the same as the games (ie. Leon is voiced by Paul Mercier, who is the VA in Resident Evil 4). There is a Japanese dub version as well for those who enjoy Japanese voicing over anything else (but I have yet to see that version, so I'll not comment on it for now).

Character:
In addition to the return of Leon and Claire, we also see other familiar faces from the games (not going to spoil it for you, go watch it yourself). But perhaps what was most disappointing was that Ada Wong (Leon's "partner" in both Resident Evil 2 and 4) did not show up to aid him. Other than that, everything else is pretty average with a decent among of character development and backgrounds for the main movie characters.

Final Thoughts:
As a Resident Evil fan since its debut in the mid 90s in Japan, I had very high expectations for this game. In some sense, it gave me most of what I wanted to see. Although there's just so much more room for improvement ranging from the graphics to character to story plot.

Lastly, I would like to say after what Leon had been through in Resident Evil 4, the event in this movie should be child's play for me (at least there's no chainsaw or nasty parasites this time :P)

Just so you know, I've watched the original japanese dub.

Animation:
1) the visuals are similar to what you'd expect out of cutscenes from PS3 games.
2) there isn't any horror in this movie and considering this franchise is one of the "founders" of video game horror that we have in the present day it was a let down.
3) When characters are upside down, I expect that their hair isn't immune to physics. Unfortunately this isn't the case. Also, Leon's hair is the only one that barely moves at all when there's wind or movement. I know his hair is shorter than the womens' ... but it's still too long to be frozen in space, if you know what I mean.


Sound:
1) Awesome voice work from the seiyuus.
2) soundtrack and sound effects are okay


Story and characters:
1) all the mediocre hollywood clichés are present into this film. It was awful.
2) the pacing of this movie is all over the place. It starts off awesome and then just sloooooooooooooooooooooooows doooooooooooooooooown. And then we get more action and it draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaags out until the end.
3) SPOILER: Curtis sets his family photo across from the door, sets everything on fire and leaves. The viewer sees a prettly clear shot that this photo cannot be retrieved without a fire extinguisher or something. Later, Leon and Angela arrive at the scene, only to find Curtis' house ablaze. On the ground, several meters from the house in flames, the same picture can be found and it's only partially burnt. There's no flipping way this could ever happen.
4) SPOILER: once Curtis transforms into the big scary monster, Leon states the obvious. He's dead. However, at the "climax" of the movie, Angela drops the impossible-to-get photo and Curtis' takes over the monster momentarily. This was extremely stupid and it just contradicted the franchise.
5) SPOILER: romance between Leon and Angela was so unnecessary and felt out of place
6)SPOILER: Claire's role in the last "arc" of the movie (when she's stuck in the president's room) was almost non-existent. She spent ages in there without doing anything. It would've been better for her to stay unconscious somewhere than waste pointless frames with her doing anything remotely useful.
7) SPOILER: when Leon and Angela are holding onto each other but the big scary monster is also grabbing Angela, it only takes one miraculous Leon bullet to get it to let go. This is really funny because in the first scene after Curtis transforms into the big scary monster, he gets showered with machine gun bullets and he doesn't even bat his eye and it's not like the bullet hit the body part that was grabbing Angela. It was ridiculous in the worst sense.
8) SPOILER: how the heck was Frederic found at the end of the movie????????????????????


I am aware that I spoiled a lot about the story (which you may or may not skip as you read through the review) but I don't think I could explain me giving this movie a 5/10 without adressing the issues I have with the story and characters.

=-= Biohazard : Degeneration =-=

Story : 2/10
Dude...this movie was the most cliche thing I have ever seen in my entire nearly-sixteen-years-long life.
When I heard that a full Resident Evil movie was to come out a few months ago, I was kinda hyped. But, after watching this...thing... I have to say that I am mega-disappointed.
The story started rather nice, but after about half an hour it got very very lame. Lots of uber-predictable and silly scenes like, for instance the water-kissing scene or the matrix bullet-time.Not to mention how ... the picture with Angela's family popped up 2 times in the perfect place, right on time to trigger a lame dramatic bulls**t scene.
Everything just sucked. If you don't believe me, just watch the movie. You'll understand.
I mean, I'd rather watch a bad Lorenzo Lamas action movie.

Art : 9/10
If it weren't for the nearly-flawless art, this movie would have been a perfect failure. The CG-style was awesome, and was, in my opinion the only good thing about this movie. Because of the art, I won't consider that I lost an hour and a half of my life. If only every part of this movie were as good as the art...

Sound : 3/10
Besides Leon's superficial and "bad-a**" voice acting , which failed miserably, I really liked the ending song. It was great... NOT !
I mean, come on. Something like Papa Roach or Mudvayne would have fitted a lot better with the ending. Not that pop-rock-like song.
Also, what was with the super-modern cellphones that had some old brick-like phone monophonic ringtone? And how come at the end, everyone had their clothes and hairstyles absolutely identical ? Like, what the f**k? Didn't they shoot, tumble, swim and jump throughout the whole damn movie??

Character : 4/10
What happened to the cool Resident Evil 4 Leon? What's with this Arnold Schwarzenegger-like guy? The only thing that was similar to the movie Leon and the RE4 one, was his leather jacket and the hairstyle.
At least Claire was okay (besides being slightly retarded).

Enjoyment : 3/10
All I have to say for this part is that, after the first 45 minutes, I was eager to finish it faster. And that can't be a good thing when watching a movie. If it wasn't Resident Evil I wouldn't have watched it all the way.

Overall : 4/10
Overall, this movie blew. If you're not a hardcore die-hard Resident Evil fan, don't watch it. There are lots of other horror movies that you'd be better off watching; like for example :

Dark Water, Shutter, Saw and even the Silent Hill movie, which was pretty bad.
Or better yet, go watch all three Resident Evil movies, because they can't even be compared to this piece o' trash.