'Resident Evil: Degeneration' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Josh's review of 'Resident Evil: Degeneration' is up. He says this is like watching someone else play a video game. This Blu-ray has fairly good video and audio, and handful of worthless supplements. A rental at best.

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1848...eneration.html

[Lil-H]

Great to finally see a review coming up. PQ and AQ I can live with, but lip sync thats just a shame. Oh well, gotta buy it anyway

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by Lil-H

Great to finally see a review coming up. PQ and AQ I can live with, but lip sync thats just a shame.

Yeah, and given that the motion capture actors were American and spoke English on set, it's not like the movie was animated in Japanese and then dubbed into English later. English is arguably the movie's native language.

I have a feeling that what happened was that most of the dialogue was rewritten in post-production, after the actors and animators had finished their parts.

[Dr Kain]

You guys really need to stop reviewing the movie itself, as your reviews are shit. You give crap like Day of the Dead a 3 but hate on Resident Evil. Get yourself some popcorn and learn how to enjoy a movie properly.

With that said, don't listen to the reviewer. If you are a fan of any Resident Evil game or movie, this is definitely a must own. It has a very RE2 feel to it, while giving us the two best RE characters together again, which may be the last time we see either of them since RE5 is the end of the last 13 years of continiuity. Not to mention there is a lot in here that leads directly into RE5. I will admit though, I kept wanting to grab my controller and start playing at times. It isn't perfect, but this movie is by far a 3.5/5 stars.

[Grimshaw23]

I'd give this 3/5 stars. It was decent, nothing special. I didn't like how the CGI characters look and moves. Something about them seem "mannequin-esque", just seem too unnatural.

[Lil-H]

Originally Posted by Josh Z

Yeah, and given that the motion capture actors were American and spoke English on set, it's not like the movie was animated in Japanese and then dubbed into English later. English is arguably the movie's native language.

True! I've heard Capcom did it originally in English as well, that way it would go more to the masses (presumably America, which is a huge market).
How bad it the lipsyns though? One would think syncing voices and lips to be that big of a deal.
I take it for granted that audio shuch as gunfires and explosives are spot on, as 'synced'?

EDIT:

The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats

'Resident Evil: Degeneration' comes to Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Like most Sony titles, the disc starts with an annoying Blu-ray promo and a trailer before the main menu.

Why is this relevant? Can it be skipped? I know Wall•E had shitloads of promos and trailers before the menu (which wasn't mentioned at all!), which I couldn't skip on my Samsung BDP-1400 (region locked, so not able to test on PS3)

[twonunpackmule]

This is not a great film by any means. I'm a huge RE fan, hated the Live Action films, and didn't care for this. I think it's better then the Live Action by a very small percent...however, it's still not of good quality.

The animation isn't Feature Quality. Not in the slightest. The dialog is straddling the line of terrible and boring. It never gets B-movie hilarious, which would have boosted the entertainment value.

I've seen the thing twice. I left with the same response.

It just isn't good.

The film definitely has "stages", instead of actual "acts".

[nelll]

I trust the reviewer and I will give this a rent and if mule said it's not a good film (I know he is fan of the RE stuff) I guess I'll stay away from buying it without seen first.

[project-blu]

Originally Posted by Josh Z

Yeah, and given that the motion capture actors were American and spoke English on set, it's not like the movie was animated in Japanese and then dubbed into English later. English is arguably the movie's native language.

I have a feeling that what happened was that most of the dialogue was rewritten in post-production, after the actors and animators had finished their parts.

Josh, when i was looking through the imdb of this title, i saw it had a japanese theatrical release (none in the USA), and it has japanese writers and director....i have not heard anything of a japanese version, but considering those facts, i'm not one to rule it out, due to the lipsynch issue.

Aliasing. BAD.

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by Lil-H

How bad it the lipsyns though? One would think syncing voices and lips to be that big of a deal.
I take it for granted that audio shuch as gunfires and explosives are spot on, as 'synced'?

The dialogue sync is terrible throughout the movie. Sound effects are in properly sync, though.

Originally Posted by project-blu

Josh, when i was looking through the imdb of this title, i saw it had a japanese theatrical release (none in the USA), and it has japanese writers and director....i have not heard anything of a japanese version, but considering those facts, i'm not one to rule it out, due to the lipsynch issue.

I'm sure that there will be a Japanese dub in that country, but I doubt that it's in any better sync. As I mentioned earlier, the motion capture actors were all speaking English on set. I think the movie was just animated with generic mouth movements and they wrote the dialogue later. That's a common production technique in anime, but it stands out more here due to the near-photorealism of the motion capture characters.

[project-blu]

hmmm...the question lies, then, in whether any japanese dub lines up lol

i haven't delved into the extras yet, otherwise i may have known about the motion cap actors. (to be honest, in reviews i don't read the extras...sue me lol, just the movie and presentation stuff)

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by Dr Kain

You guys really need to stop reviewing the movie itself, as your reviews are shit.

Happy New Year to you too.

You give crap like Day of the Dead a 3 but hate on Resident Evil. Get yourself some popcorn and learn how to enjoy a movie properly.

First off, I didn't review Day of the Dead. Peter and I are separate people and do not communicate telepathically when writing our reviews. We should not be expected to have the same taste or opinions in everything. He likes things that I don't, and vice versa.

However, I did review all of the live action Resident Evil movies and gave them fairly favorable ratings. Sorry, I just didn't like Degeneration. You're free to disagree, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't refer to my reviews as "shit" just because you liked a movie that I didn't. That's hardly mature social behavior.

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by project-blu

hmmm...the question lies, then, in whether any japanese dub lines up lol

Consider this: The movie takes place in America and all of the characters are Causcasian. Would it be more distracting to you to have the dialogue out of sync, or all of the WASP-y characters speaking Japanese?

It's kind of a lose-lose scenario.

i haven't delved into the extras yet, otherwise i may have known about the motion cap actors.

The extras are pretty superficial and don't say anything about the dialogue or lip sync, but there is footage of actors in suits covered with colored dots acting out the story.

(to be honest, in reviews i don't read the extras...sue me lol, just the movie and presentation stuff)

Don't worry about it. That's my least favorite part of writing the reviews anyway. When I read other peoples' reviews, I usually skip the Extras section too.

[cooltobeyou]

I'm a huge fan of all the Resident Evil games, and unfortunately I have to agree with this review 110%. Resident Evil: Degeneration is just very "meh." The zombie action isn't that great, the plot is a snooze, the CGI is "Playstation 2 quality" at best, and there is absolutely no character development.

I went into this film thinking, "Awesome! Claire Redfield and Leon Kennedy in the same movie! Finally a Resident Evil movie that revolves around the actual characters." Sadly though, I came away sorely disappointed. With the lack of any sort of character development in this film, they might as well have used Alice from the live action films. It wouldn't have made any difference in this movie.

So yeah...2 stars all the way for this film.

As it stands now, I actually like Resident Evil: Apocalyse the best out of the Resident Evil films. Sure, its a BAD movie...but at least it has a cheesy version of Jill Valentine, the Nemesis, Zombie dogs, those Licker things, and the whole movie is non-stop action. Resident Evil: Apocalypse definitely falls into the "so bad, that its fun to watch" category

[Emoney7]

I didnt think it was that bad. From a critical stand point 2 stars is probably generous. But as a Resident Evil fan (game), I did apreciate a respect for the material and enjoyed watching a feature that didnt take a dump on the games (a hem, the live actions).
The lipsync issue is pretty distracting though. worth a rental for fans, wouldnt buy it though.

I think the 'Boss Battle' is pretty sick actually.