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Warning: The following contains major and minor spoilers for Resident Evil: Damnation.
Resident Evil: Damnation is extremely faithful to the famed survival-horror franchise. And that’s the problem: It’s too similar. And the reflection in the mirror isn’t very flattering.
The movie’s slavish devotion to the games manifests itself in cringe-worthy dialogue, contrived situations, and characters that behave like teenagers in a slasher flick. This is exactly what we’ve come to expect from Resident Evil.
Ever since #4, Resident Evil has slowly morphed from a campy throwback to classic horror films into a formulaic third-person shooter, more akin to Gears of War than Alone in the Dark.
The early games were always one Jill Sandwich short of a buffet, but they had charm. The kitschy allure hid the blocky controls, clunky dialogue (which may or may not have been intentional), and B-movie acting.
But Resident Evil 4 began the slow transformation from survival horror into generic action title. Resident Evil 6 completes that cycle (for more on that, see this insightful analysis from Bitmob’s Jasmine Maleficent Rea).
Resident Evil: Damnation is the worst of both worlds. It reflects the campiness of Resident Evil 1 and Wire-fu theatrics of RE5, but the raison d’etre is gone. You could never confuse Damnation with survival horror. It’s not scary, creepy, or mildly frightening. And it features the same physics-defying, John Woo-inspired action scenes as RE4, 5, and 6.
It is, in other words, exactly what the games have become.
The story — which features Leon Kennedy, Ada Wong, and a fictional Eastern Slovac Republic — is every bit as cheesy as the series' forebear, but the irony is lost. Every time Leon opened his mouth, I cringed. The Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) agent is no Master of Unlocking, but he does spout such gems as "Better hurry up and get this done. I need some breakfast" and "I guess scarecrows aren’t exactly known for their rousing conversation."
The one-liners fly faster than an '80s Schwarzenegger flick, but unlike The Governator, I don’t think anyone will be quoting "Big surprise" or "This might hurt a little" 28 years from now. Yippee-ki-yay, Leon.
President Svetlana Belikova: Politician, femme fatale, and bad ass.
And in a quote worthy of Keanu Reeves (and his knack for reminding others that he’s an F-B-I Agent), the fictional Slovac President — a femme fatale, of course — utters “I am the president of this country.” Whoa!
One of the most ridiculous action scenes in modern gaming history involves said President — naturally, a Kung-Fu expert — duking it out with Ada, both dressed to kill in high heels. Ada flips around like an Olympian gymnast (just like the games), and in action-movie tradition, the bad guys shoot like Star Wars stormtroopers (i.e., badly), and the good guys are expert marksmen.
Rest assured that any character who shares his dreams for the future (moving to America, for instance) will catch a bullet (or a Plaga, as it were). Every military unit or paramilitary force exists to be slaughtered. The clichés are enough to make a games writer blush when he couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with a well-placed pun.
This is exactly what the games have evolved to, with all the campiness of George Romero and all the pizzazz and subtlety of a latter-day Universal Soldier (the infamous Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle where he fights that other ‘80s action stereotype, Dolph Lundgren).
And if you thought the sexy teens in Friday the 13th and every shitty slasher flick were chronic dumbasses for checking strange noises, you haven’t seen Resident Evil: Damnation. In one egregious example that literally had me yelling at my TV, an ally gives Leon his weapon, only to find himself helpless five seconds later when the Plagas hordes attack.
The live-action Resident Evil flicks weren’t exactly Citizen Kane, but they also weren’t very faithful to the source material. Resident Evil: Damnation has no such alibi. Its slavish devotion to the games exemplifies everything that's wrong with the series.