Blu-ray Review: RESIDENT EVIL: INFINITE DARKNESS

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Dec 26, 2021 Posted by Kyle Nolan in DVD/Blu-ray, Reviews | Comments

Capcom’s Resident Evil video game series has spawned off a massively popular live-action franchise as well as a recent reboot, and several CG-animated films. Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness is the fourth CG-animated entry in the franchise, but this time it takes the form of a four-episode series.

In the year 2000, a civil war broke out in Penamstan, a small country in southern Asia bordering China. When the elite Mad Dogs unit flew in to help a downed U.S. helicopter, things didn’t quite go as planned and the soldiers witnessed something horrible. It is now 6 years later, and aid worker Claire Redfield is working at the UN refugee camp in Penamstan when she finds a disturbing picture of the civil war drawn by a boy who witnessed the event—and it reminds her of the the horrors she had seen during the zombie outbreak in Racoon City. So Claire decides to investigate what really happened with the Mad Dog unit six years ago. Meanwhile, Leon S. Kennedy, who had also been in Racoon City, and more recently saved the president’s daughter’s life, has been summoned to the White House to join a team investigating a recent security hack and possible inside job. However, shortly after Leon arrives, the president and his detail find themselves dealing with a zombie outbreak within the walls of the White House.

Over the course of the four-episode series, Claire and Leon find themselves delving into the past to uncover a dark conspiracy to send the country into war and unleash a deadly but profitable biotoxin weapon on the world. Each episode flows nicely into the next, usually leaving the viewer on some big suspenseful reveal. The episodes also make use of flashbacks to slowly reveal and piece together how the events with the Mad Dogs unit actually played out during the Penamstan civil war.

Here is an overview of the episodes:

Episode 1 (25:19)
Four agents—Leon Kennedy, Patrick, Shen May & Jason, “The Hero of Penamstan”—are called into the White House to investigate an inside security breach, but soon find themselves under attack by zombies. Now they must also figure out how the zombies got there and who’s behind it. Meanwhile, Claire Redfield, who works with TerraSave, the NGO assisting at the UN refugee camp for the Penamstanis, arrives at the White House looking to ask the press secretary some questions, but runs into old acquaintance Leon.
Episode 2 (25:36)
Claire thinks there is something the government is hiding about the Penamstan civil war, and her suspicions are only further fueled when she learns that nearly all of the soldiers in the Mad Dog unit committed suicide afterwards. Meanwhile, Jason leads the group on a covert mission into China via submarine to retrieve the stolen intel, but they soon discover that even this pressurized tube underwater isn’t isolated from the virus. The team suddenly finds themselves fighting off a dangerous new threat.
Episode 3 (24:51)
Claire continues her investigation and uncovers something shocking that puts her in danger. Meanwhile, Leon also learns the truth about what happened to the Mad Dogs during the war, as well as a corrupt government agent trying to cover things up.
Episode 4 (27:55)
Leon and Claire are once again reunited as they try to put an end to the government conspiracy, prevent a war, and come face-to-face with a monstrous new threat.

One does not need to have played the video games, or seen any previous Resident Evil films in order to follow this latest addition to the franchise. Though fans will certainly welcome the return of two popular characters, Leon S. Kennedy & Claire Redfield. Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness does an excellent job of building the tension and atmosphere, giving the viewer some great jump scares as the Leon and Claire each explore their separate but ultimately converging storylines. While this could have easily been told as one long movie instead of four separate 25-minute episodes, you can tell that the filmmakers gave thought to making this a four part series, and didn’t just make a movie and then decide to chop it into four segments. Each episode has its own tone and feeling, with some nice twists and usually some big reveal just before the credits roll.

The episodes feel very cinematic in the camera moves and coverage. The animation style looks quite good, especially in the backgrounds and settings, which look almost real at times. The characters have a lot of realistic detail, which actually seems to improve with each episode, though the series never reaches a truly photo-realistic nature. It feels more like an animated program or a video game cut scene rather than live action. However, based on some of the interviews in the bonus material, it sounds like this was intentional—the filmmakers wanted the iconic characters to feel more familiar to the fans, and feared that making them look too realistic would work against that goal. This more animated look is especially noticeable with Claire, who doesn’t really have a lot of fine detail in her face. This choice didn’t really bother me at all while watching, though I never had that fleeting live-action feeling like I recently did while watching Final Fantasy. I thought the overall story worked quite well, with some interesting twists and turns. There was just one character reveal in the final episode that felt a bit out of the blue and not fully explained, but maybe it was just because I haven’t played the video games.

Sony’s Blu-ray release looks and sounds great. As mentioned earlier, the level of detail varies a bit, but overall it is quite solid and well done. Being a Resident Evil movie, there are several darker scenes, but the action still remains easy to make out no matter how dark things get. The audio track is excellent, making extensive use of the stero and surround channels to set the tone, add to the tension, and bring the world to life. This is an animated film, so the filmmakers were working from scratch with the audio but they provide a rich, full soundtrack that makes it feel like you are really in the live-action locations. Whether it’s the whirs of helicopters flying overhead, the general commotion of soldiers and zombies on the ground, or the noise of people and activity going on at the refugee camp, there is a constant immersive soundtrack to help transport the viewer into this world. Much of the dialogue comes from the front and center channel, and remains clear throughout. The release only includes one bonus feature, but it is a really interesting and extensive 35-minute behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film. The Blu-ray disc resides in a standard HD keepcase placed in a glossy slipcover. Unfortunately, no digital copy is included—though the program is currently not even available for purchase digitally, just streaming on Netflix.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (1:43:41)

All 4 episodes of the first season.
1080p / Widescreen 1.85:1
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, German 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Spanish 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Thai 5.1 Dolby Digital
Subtitles: English, English SDH, Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Spanish, Thai, Turkish

Extras:

The Making of Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness (34:59)
An extensive look at the making of the series with the cast and filmmakers. They discuss the decision to make a series rather than a film for this fourth CG installment of the franchise, the motion capture process and advantages, casting the series, the challenges for a veteran live-action director working in CG for the first time, using interpreters on set, the use of CG and lighting the final image, ensuring that any camerawork they did in the CG world could have also been done in live action, balancing the CG and realism to find the right look for the characters, and more. Includes lots of behind-the-scenes footage, especially of the motion capture process, side-by-side comparisons between the motion capture and final scenes, video storyboards, reference artwork, and interviews with executive producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi, director Eiichirô Hasumi, CG producer Kei Miyamoto, military supervisor Akihiko Sai, action coordinator Yuta Morokaji, CG director Tomohiro Shimizu, cinematographer Jun Watanabe, and live-action actors Nick Apostolides (“Leon S. Kennedy”), Armen Taylor (“Jason”) & Stephanie Panisello (“Claire Redfield”). Nearly all of the interviews and title cards are in Japanese with English subtitles, with only the actors speaking in English.
Previews
Trailers for Don’t Breathe 2 (1:45), Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2:13), Resident Evil: Damnation (1:02), Resident Evil: Vendetta (1:33), Monster Hunter (2:16) & Death of a Telemarketer (1:02) play back-to-back.

Final Thoughts:

My Rating

Episodes:

Video:

Audio:

Extras:

Recommended

Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness is an entertaining new CG-animated installment in the Resident Evil franchise. Even though this could easily have just been a single 90-minute movie, the four-episode format works quite well, giving some nice suspenseful breaks between episodes. The story itself is interesting and fits in well with the franchise timeline. Sony’s Blu-ray release looks great and sounds amazing, and includes an interesting behind-the-scenes featurette. This release comes recommended for fans of the franchise, and those on the fence can always check it out on Netflix first.