My Thoughts on "Resident Evil: Death Island"
Note:
I originally wrote this on Saturday July 29, 2023 and I posted it on DeviantART on Wednesday August 2, 2023. Yes, this was the movie that I watched in July instead of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Barbie, or Oppenheimer. I definitely says a lot about movie that I would rather watch a direct-to-Blu-Ray 💿 CGI animated movie based on a video game series than any of three major blockbuster movies released in theaters during that month. I was really annoyed by the whole Barbenheimer hype, and I hated how in your face it was, and how inescapable it was, especially online. So, when I discovered that a new Resident Evil movie was coming out in July, I immediately got excited and that became the movie that I wanted to see the most instead of those other movies that everyone else was raving about.
Now, Resident Evil: Death Island is not the first CGI Resident Evil movie. It's actually the fourth entry in a series that has been going on since 2008. The first CGI Resident Evil film of this kind was Resident Evil: Degeneration, which was direct-to-DVD and Blu-Ray 📀💿 just like every other entry would be outside of Japan 🇯🇵. That film received mixed reviews from critics and fans, who mostly criticized the motion capture animation, and also criticized the characterization of some of the characters, specifically, Leon S. Kennedy, who didn't at all feel like the same wise-cracking government agent that he was in Resident Evil 4, the most beloved entry in the main game series. That was despite him having the same voice actor as he did in 4. But, they definitely improved the characterization which each subsequent film to where the characters feel exactly like their video game counterparts.
What really set these movies apart from any of the various live action adaptations over the years is that they were actually set in the same universe as the games. These movies are canon with the games, and all the events of the movies happened within the timeline of the games. All of the movies and series so far have been set in-between the main installments of the game series. Like, Degeneration and Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness are both set in-between Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5. Resident Evil: Damnation is set in-between Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil 6. And Resident Evil: Vendetta and Resident Evil: Death Island are both set in-between Resident Evil 6 and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard ☣️.
Certainly, there are things in these movies and the miniseries that you probably wouldn't understand or understand as well if you had never played any of the games. Like, in Death Island, you'd probably wouldn't understand why Jill Valentine is the way she is in this movie if you had never played Resident Evil 5. Which had a remastered version on the PS4 and XBox One back in 2016, and will probably get remade next since the Resident Evil 4 remake was such a huge success 🤑. So, if you haven't played Resident Evil 5 by this point, that's on you.
Speaking of which, Infinite Darkness was this sub-franchise's foray into television, or streaming to be more specific. It was released on Netflix, and it had about 4 episodes. It was a miniseries, and had it on singular serialized story that spans all four episodes. It's really watching a movie split up into multiple parts, and when you add up the episodes together, it clocks in at 105 minutes, or 1 hour and 45 minutes. Which begs the question, why didn't they just make it a movie? Why even bother making it a miniseries? But, despite me questioning the necessity of it needing to be a miniseries, I still like Infinite Darkness a lot. I bought the Blu-Ray 💿 of it as soon as it was made available because Netflix rarely releases their shows and movies on physical media. I even wrote a review of it, which I posted on DeviantART, and will repost on here at a future date.
And I really like Death Island as well, as you'll read in the review itself, and in my 2023 New Year's Eve Recap tomorrow. I don't know what the future holds for this series, but I definitely hope that they make a movie centered around Sherry Birkin and even Jake Muller AKA Jake Wesker. They were clearly setting up a story with Jake working as a sort of hero-for-hire fighting BOWs (Bio Organic Weapons) in third world countries, or the Global South if you prefer the term, at the end of Resident Evil 6. I mean, the Global South is supposed to be a more politically correct and blanket term for both the Third World and the Second World, but it oddly sounds more derogatory and offensive.
Anyway, that was never followed up on any of the games afterwards, as they sort of did a soft reboot of the series by shifting the focus of the series to an entirely new character, Ethan, in both Resident Evil 7: Biohazard ☣️ and Resident Evil Village, rather than any of the classic characters from the previous games or the new characters they introduced in 5 and 6, or in those two spin-off games, Resident Evil: Revelations and Resident Evil: Revelations 2, which were also "in-betweenquels" with the first Revelations being set in-between 4 and 5, and the second Revelations set in-between 5 and 6. Revelations 2 is even sort of a "sidequel" since it's strongly implied that the events of the game happen during the events of Resident Evil 6.
When Claire, Moira, Barry, and Natalia escape from that island, and return to the States 🇺🇸, Claire gets a call from somebody telling her that her brother, Chris is heading off on a mission for the BSAA in China 🇨🇳, and she tells the caller to tell Piers to look after him; him referring to Chris of course. So, obviously, the stuff that happened in Edonia and in Tall Oaks in 6 happened while all that stuff on the island in Revelations 2 has happening, and the stuff that happened in China 🇨🇳 in 6 starts happening during the epilogue of Revelations 2.
This course correction was largely due to complaints from a significant portion of the Resident Evil fanbase that the games were becoming too action-oriented as they put more and more emphasis on third-person shooter combat, and weren't scary enough or were losing their horror edge. So, both Biohazard ☣️ and Village were attempts by Capcom to reorientate the series once again, and bring it back to survival horror. Even if it came at the expense of the lore, and a couple of the core characters.
Like, those two games turned Chris Redfield, one of the main heroes of the franchise, into a villain or at the very least, an antihero, who's willing to work with an Umbrella affiliate group or an Umbrella successor. Even though 6 was all about him trying to stop an Umbrella copycat group, Neo-Umbrella, which was a terrorist organization created by a scientist named Carla Redames, who was turned into an Ada Wong doppelgänger by the secondary villain of that game, Derek C. Simmons, and was bent on world destruction. Because Carla wanted revenge on Simmons for what he did to her, and the only way that she felt she could do that is by destroying the world order that him and his secret Illumanti-esque society called the Family helped create.
Yes, the entire world within the Resident Evil universe was created and shaped this one secret society called the Family, and the secondary villain of 6, Simmons was a member of this organization. And Carla's entire plan in that game is to use bioterrorism to dismantle the established world order that the Family created from behind-the-scenes and within the shadows, and replace it with chaos and death. All for the purposes of making Simmons suffer as much as humanly possible.
Destroying his life's work, destroying everything he loves and cares about, and then transforming his body in grotesque ways by infecting him with the C-Virus that she modified using Jake's antibodies 💉. This woman ♀︎ almost destroyed the world just to get back at one man ♂︎ who ruined her life, and transformed her into a clone of another woman ♀︎ he was infatuated with and had rejected him without her consent. She is definitely evil, and anyone who suggests otherwise is kidding themselves or is excusing her evil deeds. Yes, she was a victim, but she became a victimizer herself in her attempts to get revenge on the man ♂︎ who had victimized her. Like I said, it's like if the Illuminati were real, and were everything the conspiracy theories said they were. It's all very complicated, convoluted, and even sort of silly stuff, but that's why I love Resident Evil lore.
And yet, in Biohazard ☣️, Chris is cool with working with another organization that's named after Umbrella, all because the BSAA (Bioterrorism Security Assistance Alliance)—an organization he helped create—turned out to be evil? It doesn't make sense, and kind of undermines Chris's character in my opinion. And if that wasn't enough, Village introduced vampires and werewolves into the series, things that were never indicated to have existed within the Resident Evil universe. I mean, I can accept zombies 🧟♂️ and BOWs, but I draw the line at vampires and werewolves. That's kind of straying too far into fantasy territory, and Resident Evil has always been science fiction. It's a biopunk franchise. Even though it had zombies and these giant, weird creatures, there were always based in science. Sure, it was made-up video game/movie science, but it was still science regardless.
But, vampires and werewolves cannot really be explained with science. I mean, I guess you could, like you could say that vampires were created through a virus similar with zombies 🧟♂️, that's the explanation for vampires in both Ultraviolet and Daybreakers, and you could say that werewolves were created through genetic engineering 🧬 by crossing human 🧍DNA 🧬 with wolf DNA 🐺🧬, but I don't think that's the direct they went with in Village. There just are vampires and werewolves now, and there isn't really any semblance of a scientific explanation for them. It brings supernatural and magical elements into a franchise that's always been about having things explainable through science and technology. Even Biohazard ☣️ got this right, by having the main BOW threat be fungus, some mutated mold.
I know that one of the original scrapped versions of Resident Evil 4 was also supposed to introduce supernatural elements into the series by having Leon face off against ghosts 👻, but that version of the game was scrapped for a myriad of reasons, one of them probably being the developers realized it would've against the established lore, and broken the rules they themselves set out for this fictional universe. It would be like if you had a Ghost in the Shell movie, show, or video game that all of a sudden had wizards and dragons.
So, my issue with Village is that it brings supernatural elements into a series that never had them, and was better off for it. That's why I've chosen not to play it. Not that I would be able to even if I wanted since it's only on PS5 and XBox Series X and Series S, and has never been ported to the PS4 or the Nintendo Switch to my knowledge. That being said, I do like the new female characters ♀︎ they added in Village 😉😍. Not so much Lady Dimitrescu, she's pretty overrated, but her daughters, Cassandra Dimitrescu, Bela Dimitrescu, and Daniela Dimitrescu. Cassandra's the hottest of the three 😍. And of course, there's Rose Winters, the mutant daughter of Ethan and Mia Winters.
She was literally born from that mutated mold from Biohazard ☣️ that I wrote about earlier in this note, from Ethan and Mia's DNA 🧬 which the mold replicated somehow. Geez, that's even weirder than the shit that happened to Carla in Resident Evil 6. Resident Evil Village actually managed to do something weirder than an Ada clone being created through infecting a female scientist 👩🔬 (a white female scientist 👩🔬 I might add) with a virus she created that cocoons her and alters her DNA 🧬 to become exactly like Ada's, and then emerge as a near identical clone of her like butterfly or a moth 🦋. An evil mutant fungus creating the illegitimate child of a human couple through its ability to replicate human DNA 🧬 😕. She's a mold girl ♀︎ basically, a girl ♀︎ born of mold and made of mold. I've seen the sexy art people have drawn or rendered of Rose after Village came out, and her let me tell you 🥵, she's one hottie 😍. That mold made Ethan and Mia one good looking daughter. So, even if Village goes against the lore, it at least gave us some new female characters ♀︎ that the fanbase and the Internet as a whole will lust after, and make sexy pornographic fan art of 🔞.
But anyway, back to what I saying, I would like to see that ending from Resident Evil 6 with Jake Muller becoming a hero-for-hire rather than a mercenary followed up on. Either in a game, or in a movie in this series. They could even have Jake and Sherry reunite, and face against a BOW and bioterrorist threat together. After all, Sherry Birkin was one of the only two "hero" characters from the original three games, the Raccoon City Saga as I've decided to call it just now, that wasn't featured in Death Island. The other one was Ada, the spy-for-hire herself.
Well, I think I've said most of what I wanted to say here, and I better let you get on with the review. I'll just finish by saying that I am huge fan of Resident Evil, if you couldn't tell already. It's one of the few, if only mainstream biopunk franchise that I know of. Sure, there's a lot of steampunk stuff out there, and a lot of cyberpunk stuff out there, but not really a lot of biopunk, and that's a shame. Resident Evil delivers a lot of biopunk genre goodness that we're missing out on in mainstream film and gaming.
It draws you with the familiarity of zombies 🧟♂️, and then throws all of these other insane, horrifying, and cool monsters at you. If ever manage to get into film or TV, and I decide to make my own show or movie, it'll be biopunk. I have my cousin to thank for getting me into Resident Evil. I knew of Resident Evil because of the live action Milla Jovovich movies that everyone likes to hate on, but I wasn't really into it at that point. It wasn't until my cousin introduced to both Resident Evil: Degeneration and Resident Evil 4 that I really started getting into Resident Evil. So, you're reading this, brother, thank you.
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I had no idea this movie even existed, or was even coming out until a few weeks ago back in July, but here we are, Resident Evil: Death Island. It's apart of the CGI Resident Evil film series, which started with Resident Evil: Degeneration in 2008. They exist in the same universe as the main video game series, and they often continue the events from the main series games. But, the games don't really acknowledge or continue the events of these movies. So, it's kind of a one way street.
This movie is a direct follow-up to Resident Evil: Vendetta, and the miniseries, Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness, which was a prequel set in-between Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil: Revelations. I don't really know why they made it a miniseries. They could've easily have just told that story in a movie, probably would've been better for it. I wrote a review of that series if you're interested in reading what I thought of that. I'll leave a link to it down below.
Now, obviously, this movie is more of a direct sequel to Resident Evil: Vendetta. Like, that evil blonde lady ♀︎, Maria from that movie is back in this movie, working as a henchman to the bad guy of this movie, just like she was working for Glenn Arias in Vendetta. It also addresses some things that were left unaddressed at the end of Resident Evil 5, mainly Jill Valentine. We finally see what happened to her after Resident Evil 5, something that should've already been done in Resident Evil 6, since that game was the direct sequel to Resident Evil 5. But, better late than never.
She's still coping with having been brainwashed and mind-controlled by Albert Wesker in Resident Evil 5, and forced to assist him in his plan to infect the entire world with the Uroboros virus, and also almost kill her long time partner and friend, Chris Redfield. She has only recently been let back on the field, and she is recklessly running into danger, without backup. All because she doesn't want to show weakness anymore. And the movie is mostly about her coming to terms with what she went through, and moving past it to become her old self again, the Jill we all know and love.
They pretty much used her same character model from the Resident Evil 3 remake. They just aged her up a little bit to show that some time has passed, so it's not exactly the same as her character model in the Resident Evil 3 remake, but pretty close. They even use footage from the remake when they're showing off Jill during the opening credits. They do the same thing when they show off Leon and Claire, they show footage from the Resident Evil 2 remake, as well as footage from both Vendetta and Infinite Darkness, since their designs are carryovers from that movie and that miniseries. They also briefly show footage from Resident Evil 6 interestingly enough. I never thought that Capcom would ever acknowledge that game again since most game critics, and a good portion of the fans hated it. But, it's cool that it's getting some love.
Some might think that it's lazy that they used the same design for her that she had in the Resident Evil 3 remake, and they should've given her a different design for this movie (there were concept art of her with different hairdos), but I don't mind. I really like her character model in the Resident Evil 3 remake, way more than her character model for Resident Evil 5. She looks way hotter now 😍. But, seriously, it's a great look for her, and I'm glad they used it in this movie.
Interestingly, the movie starts off with a prologue scene flashing back to the Raccoon City incident. These Umbrella mercenaries helicopter into the city to rescue Umbrella executives, and see first hand how callous the company is towards civilians during the zombie outbreak 🧟♂️. One of the mercs, as it turns out, is the main villain, Dylan Blake. He's traumatized by what happened on his mission in Raccoon City, where all his comrades got infected with the t-Virus and turned into zombies 🧟♂️, and were gunned down by his other friend, JJ, until he was also bitten, and had to be gunned down by him.
Now, he's an edgelord who plays Russian roulette 🇷🇺 with himself and others, like the doctor he kidnapped, and waxes philosophically about why turning people into zombies 🧟♂️, and creating and using BOWs (Bio Organic Weapons) is morally justified. Don't know why that experience in Raccoon City was enough to make him want to infect more people with the t-Virus. You'd think Dylan, of all people, would be against using zombie viruses 🦠, but I guess not.
He says that his motivate is to destroy the established order, because he believes that organizations like the BSAA, TerraSave, and the DSO only serve to preserve the status quo. And he believes that the only way to end this cycle of bioterrorism and violence is to destroy the status quo entirely, and wipe the slate clean. And the way he intends on doing that is by infecting the entire world with his modified t-Virus, choosing which people get to die and become zombies 🧟♂️, and which ones don't. Why he thinks the best way to get rid of bioterrorism is more bioterrorism is beyond me.
I know he hates the rich and powerful and everything, but causing the zombie apocalypse 🧟♂️ won't solve anything, it'll just create an entirely new problem. It doesn't really make that much sense from what we see his backstory is. Why would someone who hates Umbrella, and hates that his friends turned into zombies 🧟♂️, want to do that same thing, but a hundred fold? And for all his moral grandstanding, he just turns into a giant monster at the end anyway. Even the movie acknowledges how stupid his motives actually are.
Honestly, Dylan is one of the weaker villains in this series. He's better than Glenn Arias, but he's still pretty bad, like he's written kind of badly. It's a shame that the movie that brought nearly all of the major Resident Evil characters together in one movie has such a weak villain. They needed a much better villain to oppose them, and Dylan is definitely not it 👎. How cool would it have been if all the characters had faced off against Albert Wesker, the actual big bad of the franchise? That would've been really awesome. That would've felt like a major event worth bringing in everyone. Too bad they killed him off too soon in Resident Evil 5.
Speaking of Glenn Arias though, Dylan was friends with him apparently. He's where he learned everything about bioweaponry, and where he got all of his resources. That's also the reason why Maria is working for him, but also to get revenge on Leon for killing her dad. But, it's okay, he kills her in a one-on-one fight. I'm so glad that they kept her dead after that, and didn't do that bullshit thing that horror movies do where the villain gets back up even when you think they're dead. I'm also glad they didn't have her survive until the end either, like if she escaped and went on to work for some other genocidal bad guy in the next movie, who probably also has a connection to Glenn Arias 🙄, I would've been really upset. They just killed her off, got it over with, tied up that loose end, and now they can just move on.
The action in this movie for the part is pretty good. There isn't a whole lot of action. Most of the action in the movie is in the third act, when the gang faces off against a mutated Dylan, who infected himself with the virus, and fused with that shark BOW 🦈 he had patrolling Alcatraz. I know there's a line earlier on in the movie where this Wildlife Patrol guy is talking to Claire, when they investigate the orca carcass, he asks her if a shark 🦈 ate the whale, but Claire says no, and says that sharks 🦈 don't bother with orcas. But, it was a shark 🦈. Granted it's a genetically engineered shark 🦈🧬 that was created with a virus 🦠, but still, it's a shark 🦈. Claire was wrong. Most of the action scenes in the movies, besides the final fight with the Dylan shark monster 🦈, aren't that memorable or noteworthy. Don't expect anything like that shootout scene in Vendetta where Chris and Leon go full John Wick on a hallway full of zombies 🧟♂️.
There's an action scene in the movie where they copy the highway chase from Bad Boys II. The opening motorcycle car chase with Leon going after the kidnappers who took Dr. Taylor (one of whom is Maria), there's a part, where a car hauler truck is passing by, and Maria releases the cars on a car hauler truck, and sends them hurdling towards Leon. Just like when the Haitian gangsters 🇭🇹 drop all those cars from a car hauler truck right in front of Mike and Marcus in Bad Boys II.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's little thing I noticed, and probably no body else will notice unless they've also seen Bad Boys II. Of all the action movie franchises out there, I'm surprised that Transformers hasn't had a scene like this. You'd think it'd be a no brainer, like you could have Optimus in his truck mode, hauling car haul trailer with all the other Autobots hanging on there in their vehicle modes, ready to deploy and transform at any moment. That would be cool.
Also, how does anyone in this world still not know what a zombie 🧟♂️ is? When Chris, Jill, and Claire go to investigate Alcatraz the first time, posing as tourists, a zombie attacks one of the tourists. And all tourists all standing around shocked and confused like, "What is that?" What are you talking about? That's a zombie 🧟♂️! They attacked Raccoon City in 1998, they attacked Harvardville in 2005, they attacked Penamstan during the civil war there from 2000 to 2006, they attacked the White House in 2006, they attacked Tall Oaks and Lanshiang in 2013, and they attacked New York City in 2017.
These were huge events that affected hundreds, if not, thousands of people, and were all over the news. Everybody should immediately know what a zombie 🧟♂️ is, and recognize one when they see one, not just our main heroes. Zombies 🧟♂️ should be seen as common and as ubiquitous as like a twister 🌪️ or a hurricane 🌀, or an earthquake. As much as people complain about Army of the Dead 🧟♂️🎰, at least in that film, they established that zombies 🧟♂️ were common knowledge, and everyone knew what they were after they overran Las Vegas, and the entire city was quarantined. It'd be kind of hard for them not to be, considering this is Las Vegas, Nevada we're talking about. It's one of the most famous cities in the entire world. People better know what a zombie 🧟♂️ is after an outbreak happened there.
One thing I've always liked about Resident Evil compared to other zombie media 🧟♂️ is that it isn't just zombies 🧟♂️. There's other creatures as well. And this movie doesn't really have that many creatures. Besides the zombies 🧟♂️ of course, you have these "bio-drone" BOWs that look like mosquitoes 🦟, but aren't mosquitoes 🦟. They're drones that look like mosquitoes 🦟, and are the size of mosquitoes 🦟. These drones are the main threat that the gang has to stop before they spread the virus to entire world. They allow you infect someone with the virus, and turn them into a zombie 🧟♂️, without them needing to be bitten first. And once they are infected, they can't turn anyone else into zombies 🧟♂️ if they bite them. The only way people can turn into zombies with this virus is if they're injected with it directly 💉 by one of these bio-drones.
There's the Lickers, which can swim this time, and have these weird-looking fins on the side of their heads. They're pretty much guard dogs, just like in Resident Evil 5. They patrol the lower levels of the prison. There's a pretty cool action sequence involving Jill and Leon fighting a whole bunch of these things. They're also carriers for the bio-drones, like we see a bunch of them submerged in water 💦, their backs open up, and swarms of bio-drones just fly out of them. I guess, the intention was that these Lickers would swim out of Alcatraz, and then release all the bio-drones into the air to inject people with the virus 💉.
Then there's the shark BOW 🦈. I already kind of talked about it. There's not much to say about it other than that it's just giant mutated shark 🦈. It eats people 🩸. It ate all of Rebecca's team when she came to the others' rescue with the vaccine 💉. And then there's Dylan. He injects himself with the virus 💉, falls into the water 💦, and then gets swallowed by the shark BOW 🦈, which causes him into fuse with it, and become this giant mutated shark/human hybrid BOW 🦈 that has hooves for some reason. Did Dylan cross that shark BOW 🦈 with an ungulate as well? Why does his monster form have hooves?
But, either way, he's the final boss for the heroes to kill that the end. Every Resident Evil game and CGI movie ends with the main bad guy turning into a big monster that the protagonists have to blow up with a rocket launcher 💥. Only Shark Dylan 🦈 is a lot sturdier than most other Resident Evil bosses. Like it takes about three or four different rockets from two different rocket launchers, a shot from a plasma rifle, a gate, and a bomb to finally take him down.
They just straight up have plasma rifles now, but they take 20 years to charge up; not literally, "20 years" is just an expression to say that something's taking really long; I got it from my grandparents. So, you have to make sure you hit your target, otherwise you'll be waiting a really long time for it charge back up. I love that detail that it knocks Jill back when it fires, like it's just that powerful. It's also absurdly big, like it doesn't even seem like it's meant for an average height soldier. When the final rocket launcher that Leon and Chris use to close the gate at the end is also absurdly big. Like, who are these weapons designed for? Tyrants? Anyway, despite those weird hooves, Dylan's BOW monster form still looks pretty cool. Way better than his human form, that's for sure.
Overall, I would say that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It was fun to see all of these characters finally together in one movie, and kicking ass. I just wish they had a better villain to go up against, one that was worthy of them all working together as one team. I also wish that Ada Wong and Sherry Birkin were included. Then it really would've been complete. I don't know how they would've worked them into the story. The main reason why Leon, Chris, Jill, Claire, and Rebecca came together in the first place is that they were all working on cases that led directly to Alcatraz. What reason would Ada or Sherry have for going to Alcatraz and facing off against Dylan? I don't know, but I'm sure they would've been able to come up with something.
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