As I’ve made clear on this blog a couple of times, I really enjoy the animated “Resident Evil” movies. The live action ones can burn in hell, but that’s a different story for a different day. So I was of course excited when a third entry in this series was announced. So I waited and a couple trailer came out and they got me excited and now the movie’s out and I’ve seen it so now it’s time to talk about it.
Ladies and gents… “Resident Evil: Vendetta”.
When a vengeful black market dealer is about to unleash a deadly virus upon New York City, BSAA agent Chris Redfield (Kevin Dorman) has to enlist the help of Leon Kennedy (Matthew Mercer) and Rebecca Chambers (Erin Cahill) to try and stop the villainous man. So now we have our standard “Resident Evil” plot. And using the word “standard” doesn’t have to be a bad thing, because every “Indiana Jones” movie follows the same formula (and you know it), and people (mostly) love them). Same with “Resident Evil”, you can usually guess the story beats of each one, and that’s fine because they always find some way to hold onto you. And while the plot here isn’t bad, I just found that it didn’t really grab me. I was entertained, and thanks to the short runtime the pacing never let up more than it needed. But this plot overall just went by, never really grabbing me along. It’s just… fine.
The characters here, while not as great as in the last animated “Resident Evil” flick, are still interesting and pretty entertaining. Chris Redfield here is still the tough, determined, meathead that he’s always been. And while it’s weird not hearing Roger Craig Smith doing the voice, I do think Kevin Dorman does a good job in the role. Leon Kennedy in this is still the badass motherfucker that we know him as, with some of that cocky attitude still intact. Sure, they play him a bit more serious in this than in the last two movies, but he’s still entertaining as a character. And Matthew Mercer is of course once again great in the role. Rebecca Chambers is a character that we haven’t seen since 2002’s “Resident Evil: Zero”. And in this, instead of being a member of the STARS team, she’s a scientist. And she’s pretty cool, even though she doesn’t get to do a lot of cool stuff. And Erin Cahill is really good in the role. And the villain of the movie, Glenn Arias, they try to make sympathetic in a way that I won’t spoil here. And while I kind of understand his reasoning for doing what he does, as a villain he was just fine. John DeMita was good in the role though. So overall it’s a well acted movie (even if the dialog is often… not great).
The score for the movie was composed by Kenji Kawai and I think he did a great job with it. His score is cool, tense, and badass, often elevating scenes that wouldn’t have been as great without the music. And overall the score is just great, making for some good ear candy (the end credits song being a standout).
“Resident Evil: Vendetta” was directed by Takanori Tsujimoto and I think he did a solid job. Sure, he doesn’t build a lot of suspense with his directing, but he still brings a lot of flair and energy to it. Which also brings me to the animation and holy shit, this animation looks awesome! It’s detailed, fluid, and just looks all kinds of great. Especially in the facial animations which look terrific. And the action scenes too, while not subtle in the slightest (in fact they’re loud and kind of ridiculous), look awesome. They’re so much fun and just brought a big, dumb smile to my face. And is this movie scary? Fuck no.
This movie came out very recently and is very niche, so it doesn’t have a lot of scores on the sites I usually go to. Sure it exists on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, but it has no score on either site. And if scores are added to the sites, then I won’t edit this post. But on imdb.com it has a score of 6,3/10.
“Resident Evil: Vendetta” is a dumb action-thriller for fans of the games and animated features, and as one of those people I thought this movie was really fun. It has an okay plot, good characters, great performances, great music, great directing, and great animation. My only flaw with the movie is that the plot didn’t really grab me in any way. Time for my final score. *Zombie moan*. My final score for “Resident Evil: Vendetta” is an 8,99/10. So while it’s flawed, I’d definitely say that it’s worth buying!
My review of “Resident Evil: Vendetta” is now completed.
Good to finally see Chris in one of these. I love Leon, but it’s nice to get good ol’ Redfield in a movie.
TheMarckoguy 
I must say, I never knew there were animated movies of this. Guess you learn something new every day.