RESIDENT EVIL: VENDETTA (2017)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

This RESIDENT EVIL motion-capture movie came out long enough after the last in the series, 2012's DAMNATION, that someone in production termed VENDETTA a "reboot." In terms of content, it's indistinguishable from the previous two in the series, but in terms of style, VENDETTA is as impressive as the best of the live-action EVILS.

The main hero here is Chris Redfield, primarily a character known from the RPG. In the EVIL world, illicit experiments have given rise to the T-virus and its variants, which are capable of instantly mutating human beings into ravening zombies. Redfield and his counter-terrorism unit attack the domicile of a known dealer in T-virus bioweapons, Glenn Arias, who has taken captive a female undercover agent. The soldiers are attacked by zombies created by Arias, and then Redfield suffers the sort of trauma that never happened to Chuck Norris. Redfield squares off hand-to-hand with Arias, who looks like a well-dressed day-trader, and the less muscular Arias trounces the bulky warrior. Then Arias leaves his zombies-- including the transformed female agent-- to finish off Redfield, while departing in the company of hottie Maria Gomez and her father Diego, who for some reason has been transformed into one of the bulky virus-mutants called a "Tyrant." Once the villains have escaped, air support flies in and bombs the zombies, saving Redfield.

Four months later, scientist and former agent Rebecca Chambers (also a game character) has succeeded in formulating a vaccine that can keep the virus from spreading. Arias learns about this somehow, and he unleashes his virus on the research facility. Though the other scientists are zombiefied, Chambers saves herself from that fate with her vaccine, after which Redfield and his team extract her. Chambers and Redfield then seek the help of another agent with considerable counter-bioweapons experience, Leon S. Kennedy. Kennedy has some previous trauma bugging him, but he finally agrees to join another assault on Arias after Maria and Diego Gomez attack first, kidnapping Chambers.

Ostensibly Arias wants to nullify Chambers before she can make his bioweapons obsolete. However, unlike the standard Chuck Norris evildoer, Arias also has a trauma in his past, and it's actually more emotionally resonant than Kennedy's. Years ago his estate was carpet-bombed by someone who didn't like his munitions-profession, but as it was the day of Arias' wedding, his bride perished in the holocaust. Now Arias gets the nutty idea that Chambers is going to become his new bride, though he also has some demented idea of somehow transplanting part of the dead bride into the scientist's body. Fortunately, Kennedy, Redfield and a few allies storm Arias' base, resulting in the destruction of his plans and most of the villains (though Maria survives, possibly for later use). 

This is a good kick-ass film, without any great complexity but with a fair amount of emotional resonance. Oddly, though Chambers and Maria are positioned as action-girls, and there's one unnamed female ally in the big climax, this time the guys get all the good scenes (including Redfield's rematch with Arias, which has a more salutary outcome).