Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness -(Series Review)

What do you get when Netflix buys the rights to Resident Evil animated universe?

Nothing good.

Let’s discuss.

Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness is the 4th in a series of films meant to fill in the gaps in the mainline entries to the Resident Evil universe starring your favorite characters from the games, but mainly Leon S. Kennedy. It is brought to us by the same executive producer / creator Hiroyuki Kobayashi, who is involved in some way in both the live-action Netflix productions and the animated universe, all of which suck.

The film centers on Leon, post-Resident Evil 5, but pre-assassination of the president Resident Evil 6. He’s working for the White House and is sent to investigate the hack of the White House computer network. What he discovers in his investigation leads to treasonous politicians, nuclear conflict, and a new variant of the T-virus that could destroy the world. Will Leon be able to solve the mystery and quash this new biohazard, or will he die with the rest of humanity in the coming nuclear holocaust?

I can’t even attempt to sugar coat this. Netflix’s Resident Evil movies and shows have been a steaming pile of contrived, pandering shit.

The animated universe, while much more faithful to the game series, is still a huge miss.

I started this series with the initial film, Resident Evil: Degeneration back in 2008, when I was a key-holder at blockbuster. I’d say it’s actually the most enjoyable of the series to this day, but here’s the kicker—it’s the last film in the series chronologically. Yes, that’s right… they pulled a George Lucas on this shit.

That’s probably the biggest issue with the series of films and mini-series as a whole, it feels disjointed and out of place. The second is bad writing.

This film is completely non-sensical and contrived in order to capitalize on current political conflicts. The main crux of the film centers around a corrupt, Rumsfeld-type who is conspiring to use his secret bio-weapon soldiers to engineer a conflict between the United States and China over a fake country meant to represent either Taiwan or Hong Kong.

If you’re going to utilize real-world issues, don’t puss out.

The fact that they used a fake country derails the entire thing from the start, because there’s nothing to relate to. So, everything from there feels even more fake and ruins the immersion.

The animation in this series, while once revolutionary in it’s life-like look—it’s become stale. They really haven’t done much to make the animations and characters look more fluid. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve increased the resolution and smoothed textures sure, but they’ve done nothing to alleviate the uncanny valley aesthetic that’s turned off many viewers I’ve discussed the series and films with over the years.

Bottom line: If you didn’t like the animation in the series’ previous efforts, you won’t find anything to like here.

I feel bad for the Voice Cast, as they did solid work here, but this is a complete miss—especially if you played Resident Evil 6 and know that this story is all for nothing.

It’s a throwaway tale that feels like it was mailed in to collect on all that Netflix money.

But at least it’s not the travesty that is the Resident Evil live action series that Netflix put out—Which was so bad I can’t even bring myself to type out a review.

If you do want to see this snooze fest for yourself, it’s streaming exclusively on Netflix.