Seven years after the incident at Raccoon City, the world has become hip to the experiments being carried out across the globe by the treacherous Umbrella Corporation, and many have begun asking the difficult questions.  Resident Evil: Degeneration is the all-new animated adventure which attempts to fill in some of the story gaps from the game franchise, eschewing completely the live-action versions, and get fans pumped for the upcoming Resident Evil 5 videogame.  The film had a limited theatrical run in its home country of Japan before touching down in direct-to-DVD territory, a world where its low-production values and lack of fine-tuning should help it fit right in.

The story originally sets itself up nicely as the T-virus is let loose at a populated airport, turning unsuspecting passengers into the infected biters we know and love.  Thankfully there’s not much call to actually explain what’s really going on, and before you know it series favorites Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield (last seen in Resident Evil 2, the game) are reunited once more.  Unfortunately, things go from steady to silly very quickly, and we’re soon thrust in the complex world of international terrorism, stock markets, political malfeasance, and mutant monsters.  It never makes as much sense as it should, and Godzilla effects supervisor-turned-director Makoto Kamiya handles the whole production as though it would be better suited chopped-up and spliced in between some action-packed interactive levels.  Read: it looks and plays out like the videogame cinema it probably should have been.

As I’ve come to expect with most modern Japanese animation, especially of the CG variety, you can usually tell who’s important by how extravagant they look, especially those with amazing hairstyles, and Degeneration is certainly no exception.  Main characters like Leon Kennedy and Curtis Miller look like they've stepped out of the latest issue of vogue, while secondary participants look far less interesting. In this world, a person's significance can best be represented by his or her plumage.  I'm probably going to tick off at least a few of you, but I've never been a fan of this style of character creation, a feminization of all things masculine that's about as interesting (stylistically speaking) as a box of hair coloring.  To see it creep into the world of Resident Evil has always been depressing, as I'd much rather see a few rotting undead corpses than soulless character design.

The voice-acting is typically terrible, although fans of the game franchise should be thrilled to hear that Paul Mercier and Alyson Court return as Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield, respectively.  These two do what they can amid a field of silliness, and help bridge the gap between game and film better than any melodramatic and overblown narrative can.  For the record, having grown women voice little girls is about the creepiest thing out there, and it never sounds convincing.  In fact is just sounds bad, bad, bad, and Michelle Ruff’s Rani Chawla is no exception – it’s the rule.

The locations and vehicles all look great, as does the fluid and relatively smooth movements of most of the motion-captured human (and undead) cast.  Where things break down a bit is with extreme close-ups and subtlety, as the combination of nearly photo-realistic faces on the main characters and their jerky, plasticized responses didn’t jibe all that well with me.  Angela Miller’s CG model in particular was difficult to watch, as her exquisite texture mapping – while beautiful – lacked any sense of realistic motion or humanity.  Leon’s model is one of the worst offenders, with his arms often  listlessly hanging by his side and

Also off-putting was the absurd use of hairstyles the main characters sported – they never move.  Doesn’t matter if the characters were running from an army of the undead, flipping through the air, or dripping wet, the super-hold hairspray these people use must be AMAZING.  One scene in particular had me literally laughing out loud, with two of our stylized heroes completely submerged underwater and swimming, yet their perfectly sculpted locks were never out of place.

Resident Evil: Degeneration should be recommended to diehard Resident Evil fans and diehard Resident Evil fans only.  Horror fans will likely be disappointed at the lack of horror, and animation fans will likely be disappointed with the uninspired, if detailed, animation.  That of course leaves the diehard game fans, who should by now be conditioned enough to accept moderately-entertaining animated cut-scenes featuring familiar faces in lieu of real gameplay, and should accept even a mediocre Resident Evil while counting the days for what’s sure to be the superior entertainment experience in Resident Evil 5.