Resident Evil: Death Island (2023)
A new evil has taken residence.
I’ve got a game thing coming up here in a couple weeks, so I thought I’d reign tonight’s movie in to a newer game-related movie I’ve been looking forward to. What is it? Well, it ties into a franchise that at this point I can successfully say I’ve played (and am not necessarily great at) a solid chunk of the games in - at the very least all the main-line ones. The fun part is that this one also fits into the continuity of all those games, and references parts here and there. It should be a good time since I’ve enjoyed every one of the animated takes in the franchise more than the live action ones - so it’s time to see what happens when the boulder puncher makes his way to the rock - tonight is Resident Evil: Death Island.
It’s a classic biohazard story, except this one combines a lot more characters than we did before. Chris, Jill, Leon, Rebecca, and Claire all return from the games, and we even have an appearance from juiced up daughter Maria from the last of the animated movies. We do get a handful of new characters - a bad scientist, a bad guy, and a squad of Umbrella troops as we flash back to the original Raccoon City incident. Our adventures with Chris, Jill, and Rebecca picks up after everything - with Chris using his experience from the sixth game to try and connect with a somewhat emotionally hurting Jill in an helpful way. Jill’s pushing things a bit hard on the save people front after undergoing her brainwashing in the fifth game, but she sports her nice rework look and certainly hasn’t lost any of her super-cop skills. Leon is out doing his secret agent thing, chasing after a scientist and getting thwarted by an angry Maria. Claire finds a whale that’s got a massive bite mark that her help organization tracks- so she ends up meeting up with our BSAA members to discuss the links in the T-Virus outbreaks they’ve been dealing with. All signs point to Alcatraz - and it’s when they get there that it becomes a classic game of survival against plenty of bioweapons and a new lunatic who takes justice and power into their own hands through some self-righteous ideals. Sounds like the poor Racoon crew really can’t ever get a break!
The body motion capture does a lot better this time around, telling me that the crew working on these movies keeps finding ways to improve their skills. At times, the mug shots of characters will straight up look convincing - perhaps not entirely real, but to the point you wonder if they used some kind of motion capture deep fake style trickery to really make them feel less computer-y. Other times, in the “non hero shots” we’ll say, they end up feeling a bit plastic in facial motions and although it’s still a bit above some games it’s pretty solid in the not a real human department. Some of the facial animation issues might just be if the actors were delivering in Japanese, and in turn it would end up being more of a dub issue as opposed to just an animation issue - but it’s not distracting, at least to me, so that’s good! General body movements are good most the time, with some emphasis here and there, and a good number of sweet flows during action scenes. And those chunky muscle on Chris’s model - dang bro, gonna make Arnold jealous!
The actors do a good enough job that you aren’t taken out of things. Leon cracks a few jokes that are about on my level - which of course makes me further endeared to him despite everyone hating my jokes because solidarity and stuffs. The new main villain gets a bit monologue and preach heavy at times - he’s surely no Wesker, but it’s also not even close to being off the beaten track for bad guys in this movie. He has a bit more of a hands-on trauma backstory that we get shown through out a couple of flashbacks, which helps to make it feel like there’s more perspective and motivation to him than our last main movie villain, but he still comes off as classic Resident Evil delusional villain chasing power regardless. Our main actors get to have some chemistry and the likes thanks to their various back story segments, which is nice but I admit that if someone isn’t familiar with the games I think a lot of that background-related chemistry of the heroes isn’t going to shine through or carry as much weight during the movie. It’s not needed, but it certainly enhances the experience for sure. In turn, the characters do get some time to build them up a little bit, but I feel like the most “from A to B” you’ll get with a character depth wise is the main villain as his flashbacks spell out his story. The only real main character to get the shine treatment this time around is Jill - which makes sense given her absence from the movies considering she was one of the original two game characters. That said, hers is more of a subtle change than it is anything drastic.
Umbrella might keep you dry from water, but it’s useless against bioweapons.
The animation quality here is solid. The models look great - like I mentioned, at times the faces look like it might even be more than just simple computer models and editing. Clothing has iconic looks where it wants them to be - but I will admit that clothing can still be a bit fake feeling. It does it’s job enough that it doesn’t stand out so bad that you feel like everyone is wearing plastic, but it’s also not dynamic enough that you constantly notice crazy little movement details that blow your mind - so it’s really at that perfect level of effort vs result I’d say. Rest in Peace Hawaiian Chris shirt. The move also brings in a variety of beasties, from big fish to some axolotl-looking lickers on top of the classic zombies. Some of these zombies also have some moves, being far more active then classic shambling undead - although intelligence levels don’t necessarily seem effected. Still, the animations to go along with the models are pretty well done, and when you get to some of the fun fight scenes it’s put together quite enjoyably. If I had to really pick out one thing that was a negative, I’d probably say that the mouth animations weren’t quite there and could lead to a bit of separation in the realism department.
Music was there, and in typical me fashion didn’t stick around with me afterwards. It helped with the scenes as needed, and never really overshadowed things going on. Line deliveries are pretty good, and I’d say the lines that felt a little weaker where minimal, or felt as though it was the desired line delivery. Balance is good, which is important if you want to hear people yell for each other over the din of monsters and zombies - and all those little noises also all sound quite well done. At home, one might say, after returning from playing some resident evil games. It has some heartfelt moments between characters, and the actors do a good job playing into those - but it’s also at least as important to me that it does in fact have a little camp in it. That first game was super campy at times with it’s lines, like the whole “Jill Sandwich” thing - so to get a couple of dumb jokes out of the characters here and there just serves to help be more fun and also inject that little bit of nostalgia that it’s not taking itself too seriously still. I guess part of that is the deliveries combined with the situations they find themselves in - and of course whether you find the joke funny or not is going to be entirely subjective - but I enjoyed what it brought to the table.
If I had to boil the movie to expunge an item I didn’t like, I think it would honestly end up being the final villain. He’s not a bad baddie in honesty, but he’s also very generic feeling with his motivations, and the point when he starts to monologue all of his plans can feel a bit dated. One part because “spilling the plans to the heroes” stereotype, and also because it brings with it a bit of a drawn out part where a lot of things are happening but at the same time nothing is, which makes the movie feel like it slows down more than it actually does at the moment. It’s also a minor gripe that I have point out for the sake of pointing it out to be fair. I spent pretty much the entirety of this movie enjoying myself, with a small section of trying my hardest to remember who the heck this blonde villain lady was since most the details of the last movie have already fogged in my incapable-of-memory brain. You know what, I take it back - the only thing wrong with this movie is we don’t have Barry in it.
The OG crew, back together in their new generation duds.
If you have been watching the other Resident Evil animated movies, don’t stop now and check this one out too. It’s probably the best of the bunch, although some of the crazy moments of the last one might lean some more towards that one. It’s a pleasure to see all these characters getting together and interacting as someone whose enjoyed the franchise through the years. As a movie, it works best with at least a prior knowledge to the one directly proceeding this one, and most the history that you need to know get’s spark-notes filled in with a few lines of dialogue here and there. That said, a fan of the franchise - particularly the games and these animated movies - will get a lot more out of it than someone without that attachment. Nostalgia and attachment to fictional characters and the events they’ve gone through go a long way to make up for any perceived shortcomings the movie might have - like a story that’s effectively more of the same, with different details. I enjoyed, and I figure a bunch of other folks would too - but then again, it’s only sitting at a 5.8 (6.2 unweighted) on IMDB - so I might have to just rely on my age old “I just better know how to have fun.”