Director – Makoto Kamiya, Screenplay – Shotaro Suga, Based on the Capcom Videogame, Producer – Hiroyuki Kobayashi, Photography – , Music – T’s Music Co., Ltd., CG – Production – Digital Frontier, CG Director – Atsushi Doi, Animation Supervisor – Yukinobu Fujimatsu, Production Design – Shiho Tamura. Production Company – Resident Evil CG2 Film Partners.
Voices
Matthew Mercer (Leon S. Kennedy), Dave Wittenberg (Alexander ‘Sasha’ Kozachenko aka Buddy), Wendee Lee (Svetlana Belikova), Val Tasso (JD), Courtenay Taylor (Ada Wong), Robin Sachs (Ivan Judanovich aka Ataman), Salli Saffioti (Ingrid Hunnigan)
Motion Capture Performers
Kevin Dorman (Leon S. Kennedy), David Earnest (Buddy), Melinda Lee (Svetlana Belikova), Jolene Anderson (Ada Wong), Val Tasso (JD), Kirk Thorndon (Ataman/Scarecrow)
Plot
Soldier Leon S. Kennedy has been despatched to the former Soviet country of the East Slav Republic, which is embroiled in civil war between the oligarchs and resistance fighters. Captured by the rebels, Leon discovers that biological weapons are being used, which infect and transform people into tentacled creatures.
Interspersed between the live-action films, there were also a trio of Resident EvilAnime films beginning with Resident Evil: Degeneration (2008), Damnation was the second of the anime films and was followed by Resident Evil: Vendetta (2017) and the anime tv series Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness (2021). Unlike the live-action films, the anime films were directly made by Capcom.
Rather than focus on the ongoing saga in Raccoon City, Resident Evil: Damnation takes the saga in a different direction. The American continent is abandoned for post-Soviet Russia and the fictional East Slav Republic – an example of an Imaginary Country – that is torn between an oligarchy and rebel factions. Brought to the fore is Leon S. Kennedy, a police officer who is one of the player characters in Resident Evil 2 (1998) and subsequent games, along with the character of Ada Wong, a supporting character in the same game, who became playable in later iterations. The film is set prior to the timeframe of the games and tells the background of the two characters, along with hint of romance that the game designers had been trying to introduce.
Leon S. Kennedy in action
The other notable aspect that this does is place less of an emphasis on Zombies that we get in most of the live-action films and more on Mutants – indeed, this is set before the release of the T-virus. The film serves up a nasty looking series of creatures, which are controlled by a Parasite that is passed between infectees’ mouths and turns people into mindless, red-eyed zombies. There are some quite cool looking scenes with the creatures pursuing people and their heads splitting open into a maw of writhing tentacles.
Resident Evil: Damnation is much more CGI animated than its predecessor Resident Evil: Degeneration to the extent that the characters are motion-captured animated (during the fight scenes at least) The CGI animation is variable. In the scenes running through the streets and the tunnels where the rebels reside, you are impressed by the degree of three-dimensional detail that has been placed into the backgrounds. On the other hand, the characters have the usual Uncanny Valley look of most CGI animation and lack much that is distinctive. The action scenes are okay, but I have watched enough Resident Evil by now that I feel there is nothing unique or exceptional to these.
