Resident Evil: Damnation

In the Eastern Slav Republic, the raging civil war has taken a terrifying turn as rumors of the use of BOW’s begins to spread.  Secret Service Agent Leon S. Kennedy is dispatched on a covert mission to investigate and confirm these rumors.  Leon has faced terror before but never like this.  Despite orders to evacuate, Leon decides to remain behind, joining up with a host of questionable allies and his former flame, Ada Wong, to prevent this war torn country from turning into another Raccoon City disaster.

Adapting a popular Video Game franchise into a movie or Anime can be tricky.  How closely do you adhere to a popular formula and how do you expand on it to make the experience something you cant play through at home on your system?  Resident Evil: Degeneration failed to complete the latter half of this formula, doing nothing new or exciting and instead relying on tired old RE tropes with a less than stellar story.  Resident Evil: Damnation feels like the ultimate do-over, an attempt to right most of the wrongs committed by it’s predecessor.  And you know what, despite some hiccups towards the end, for the most part it succeeds.  This is a much, much better Resident Evil movie and could very well be my favorite of the bunch, Anime or Live Action.
 
While I complained that Degeneration veered to closely to many RE tropes, Damnation can be guilty of the same but what makes its case different is the willingness to try and be different with how it approaches those tropes.  From the get go, Leon is already dropped into hostile territory, ready to commence his mission and minutes later, finds himself in a battle with some of RE’s fan favorite Lickers.  The presentation and atmosphere are all perfect.  The lighting and environments provide adequate chills and thrills and, most importantly, Leon is animated far better than in Degeneration AND he has his quippy one liners back…maybe too many but given his lifeless, robotic portrayal in the last movie I’ll take it.  It feels like Resident Evil but on a bigger scale and it really works even if you’ve seen things several times in the past.
 
The story of Damnation also allows a bit more contemplation than Degeneration.  While this isn’t the first time we’ve seen BOW’s being used internationally (they popped up in Spain in RE4 and Africa in RE5), this is the first time we’ve seen them used in a conflict by a desperate force trying to break the stranglehold of a tyrannical government.  Buddy and JD’s resistance group see themselves as the good guys though their methods are far more intense and dangerous than the enemies they fight.  And yet Damnation gives you reason to care about their struggle and hope they see the error of their ways.  JD is the MVP of the film, a hip and would be gangster who loves America and becomes chummy with Leon.  He's never annoying and becomes quite lovable compared to Buddy…seriously did his parents not love him enough?  Buddy has some generic revenge motivations all too familiar with an RE antagonist.  But his abilities make up for some of that.  Being able to control Lickers is a fun and new way to show off the usage of long time series monsters. 
 
Speaking of, Damnation brings a few old monstrous friends out to play, along with some welcome fan favorite characters.  Lickers are the predominant footsoldiers of the film.  There’s also a new breed of Las Plagas, making Damnation feel like a direct sequel to Resident Evil 4 where they were introduced.  The finale brings out some bigger guns but they lose their menace and overstay their welcome when their final battle begins to drag out as badly as any Final Boss Fight in Resident Evil 6 that refuses to end (though how Leon finishes one of these guys off is inventive for sure.)  Meanwhile, Ada Wong graces us with her lovely presence and is better serviced here than Claire Redfield was in Degeneration.  For one, it's always fun to see her and Leon reunite and banter a bit, even if Ada is as cryptic as she still is gorgeous.  And while Claire only got a five second quick time scene to show off her bad assery, Ada gets one of the major action set pieces of Damnation to show off her moves and even find a surprisingly even match in an equally gorgeous opponent.  Much like Degeneration, Damnation also utilizes the voice talents of many Video Game Voice Actors to add on familiarity.  This time, Matthew Mercer takes on Leon while Courtney Taylor (who voiced Claire in Degeneration) voices Ada, both actors playing the same roles in Resident Evil 6.  Also Hunnigan is back too, once again voiced by Salli Saffioti, and her lovely voice and presence is always welcome.
 
With a better story, better visuals and a better handling of its cast and action, Resident Evil: Damnation stands head and shoulders above the abysmal Resident Evil: Degeneration and even rises above every other Resident Evil movie so far.  There’s plenty of familiar RE tropes and atmosphere but the change in scenery and an at times challenging moral debate keeps things fresh, as does giving long time series characters more to do to expand their characters while still feeling true to what we’ve grown to love.  Save for some third act hiccups with the final boss fight and some awkward and obvious uses of 3D, Damnation proves a somewhat misleading title.  If anything, Degeneration or any of the bulk of the Paul W.S. Anderson movies feel more damned than this one.
 
8/10
 
BTW, I also know I linked this in a Top 5 a few weeks back but if you want to know my mixed feelings on the movie that follows this one, you can check out my 2020 review of Resident Evil: Vendetta right here: http://gundamanimeblog.blogspot.com/2020/08/resident-evil-vendetta.html