The Resident Evil franchise has always been a bit of a mess. It's always been a wild mish-mash of tones, concepts, genres, and storylines that becomes harder to disentangle with each new entry. The film adaptations of the games have been less varied. The animated films stand out by leaning heavily on the virtues of the medium. Resident Evil: Vendetta gives fans an experience they can't get anywhere else.
One of the many sticking points between Resident Evil titles is their genre. Every game in the franchise is a mix of horror and action, but some move the slider towards one extreme and away from the other. The films have the same decision to make, but they have discovered that only one side really works.
What is Resident Evil: Vendetta About?
Released in 2017, Resident Evil: Vendetta is the third CG-animated Resident Evil film. Early talks from Capcom called it a reboot of the film franchise. The previous films weren't particularly popular, and Vendetta did not break that trend. The film received bad reviews, but each entry made a fair amount of money. Vendetta follows familiar franchise heroes Leon Kennedy and Chris Redfield. Kennedy is portrayed by beloved Dungeon Master to the stars Matthew Mercer while Redfield was voiced by Kevin Dorman. Both actors had prior experience with their roles, leading to great performances all around. The film takes place between the ill-fated excess of Resident Evil 6 and the arguably new beginning of Resident Evil 7.
Vendettabegins with Chris Redfield tracking a former CIA agent named Glenn Arias. Arias quit the agency and turned to the ever-profitable business of selling bio-organic weapons. The CIA discovered Arias's actions and ordered his execution. A drone strike aimed at Arias's wedding kills almost everyone in attendance, but Arias lives. He wages an all-out war on the United States, partnering with the Spanish Illuminados terrorist group. Chris is almost killed in his first tangle with Arias, forcing him to seek a new path. Rebecca Chambers discovers the nature of the new A-Virus and its connection to Las Plagas. Luckily, Chris and Rebecca know one man who has survived Los Illuminados in the past. Leon Kennedy has collapsed into alcoholism and guilt after the death of his entire squad, so he's not interested when Chris comes calling. When Rebecca is kidnaped and the world is at stake, Leon agrees to join the quest, and the duo set out to stop Arias's evil plan.
How Does RE: Vendetta Handle Action Differently?
In the typical Resident Evil game, action set pieces are temporary tense events that shatter through the tone of the rest of the experience. The first few games are more heavily leaned toward survival horror, so their protagonists are always massively underpowered. If Jill Valentine played like Dante from Devil May Cry, Resident Evil would be a lot shorter and less engaging. Resident Evil 4, 5, and 6 take a more militaristic approach, but the most outlandish physical feats are left to quick-time events. Almost every example of Leon or Chris doing something absurd in a Resident Evil game takes place in a cutscene. Chris punching boulders, Leon backflipping through lasers, and Wesker's string of teleport-based fighting game combos are all moments with little or no gameplay. That means the moment-to-moment gameplay doesn't demonstrate the protagonists as superhuman while the cutscenes depict them to be one shield short of Captain America. In an animated film like Vendetta, that problem is nonexistent.
In Resident Evil: Vendetta, Leon and Chris have distinct fighting styles, tons of visually excellent scenes, and a ton of unique abilities. It can be tough to separate main characters in an action franchise when they don't have signature weapons or powers, but Vendetta is a masterclass in the art form. Chris is a proper military hunk, he slings his foes around with incalculable physical strength and wields his assault rifle like a centurion's spear. Leon, on the other hand, studied at the John Wick school of combat. A single scene in which both men are trapped in a hallway populated by zombies is among the strongest scenes in Resident Evil's on-screen history. Vendetta has the aesthetics of Resident Evil with the action stylings of a proper martial arts movie.
Resident Evil: Vendetta has a straightforward story and a messy script. It suffers a lot of the problems of other Resident Evil films. The scenes that aren't dominated by combat are utterly dull. It may be best viewed as a "best moments" compilation on YouTube. Despite the myriad of weaknesses throughout RE: Vendetta, the film understands the appeal of its big dumb action set pieces and knows how to deliver new ones. Video game movies often struggle to remain interesting after the transition out of the interactive medium, but Resident Evil: Vendetta found a way to benefit from the change. Maybe the games can find a way to incorporate some of Vendetta's fun action elements, but sometimes a battle looks better when the audience can just sit back and enjoy it.