Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness

A massive disappointment and a total bore. Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness feels cheap and ultimately unsatisfying as being a waste of time. Any monster action that happens in these episodes is very little and Leon pretty much hogs all the spotlight once again. What about poor Claire? She pretty much does nothing for almost all of it except spill out conspiracy crap. If only the story was actually interesting and had good dialogue and writing. Well got some bad news for you it's probably worse than the latest Resident Evil games. Heck, I'd pick any of the previous CGI Animated Films over this without a shadow of a doubt. At least they had some action sequences instead of this being a total snooze-fest. The finale was basically just Degeneration again. Leon and Claire only see each other for like 10 minutes and are dull as dishwater. Just awful and honestly the only things that I thought were mildly interesting in this were the zombie rats and references to the old games.

2/10.

This was ok. If you've seen other Resident Evil animated movies, this won't surprise you. This is basically all it is; a RE movie cut up into 4 chunks. If you're truly going to do a RE series, it has to be longer than 4 episodes. 6 at the very minimum.

It still is impressive CGI and I'm sure it probably is very cost consuming. My hope is that enough people will watch that they green light more episodes because there is a lot of story to tell in this universe if done properly.

And here I stumbled upon the 2021 Netflix animated CGI series "Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness" by sheer random luck. Yeah, I didn't even know that they had made this. So of course, I gobbled it up in one sitting when I stumbled upon it on Netflix.

"Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness" is watchable, and that was about it. Yeah, the contents to the first season, which consists of a staggering four episodes, it just bland and mediocre. And if you have seen the 2012 "Biohazard: Damnation" or the 2017 "Resident Evil: Vendetta" animated CGI movies, then you know what you are in for here with "Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness".

The storyline told in "Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness" is essentially the same as in every other foray into the "Resident Evil" universe. There is an outbreak of infected people and of course Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield happen to be involved. And then there is the obligatory larger and more menacing mutation of course.

So yeah, "Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness" was pretty much textbook how-to-cash-in-on-the-Resident-Evil-franchise-and-make-a-CGI-movie here, for better or worse.

Now, I am not saying that "Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness" was bad. No, no, not at all. What I am saying, though, is that it is bland and mediocre.

Sure, the CGI in "Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness" is through the roof. I was really impressed with the level of detail and the whole appearance of it all. It just looks phenomenal. And it is really pure eye-candy here for us viewers.

However, pretty CGI can only do so much for lukewarm and mediocre storyline, you know. And this is where "Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness" failed. Because the storyline was just too generic and predictable.

And I must admit that I am rather fed up with always seeing Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield in this CGI animated movies. Sure, I get they are fan favorites, but come on. Every single time there is an outbreak of the T-virus somewhere in the world, two seconds later we have Leon and/or Claire on the screen.

Sure, "Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness" is watchable, but it was essentially just another run-of-the-mill foray into the franchise. So don't expect anything groundbreaking here.

My rating of "Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness" lands on a mediocre five out of ten stars. I loved the CGI, oh yes I did. But the contents of the story was just too mundane and have been seen over and over throughout the course of the "Resident Evil" entries put out there in movie or animated movie format. Sure, I will keep watching it, if the show continues beyond this bland first season, as it is a zombie series after all and set in the "Resident Evil" universe.

Individual scenes weren't too bad, the overarching plot and premise are okay, and CGI was quite good. But when sequenced together, it was very hard to watch. There was no setup, no development, no climax... everything was flat. Even as a RE fans who finished multiple games and know a few things about character and plot, it was impossible to care about characters and what's going on. And the plot just went on and on and on without inciting any emotion when watching it. Even in one of the big conspiracy revelation, it felt like "uh, okay" at best. It's a huge missed opportunity because again, individual scenes and overall premise wasn't bad. It just poorly presented as a whole.

It's always a joy to see Leon and Claire together. The best stories are when these two are together. So it's no surprise that this is a good watch for RE fans. But the disappointment is that it's more focused on story and has forgotten to be more scary or to include cool action. This is where stories like castlevania scored which was perfectly balanced between story and action. But I am hopeful that if this season works that they will expand the story in future seasons with more episodes so not to rush the story at the expense of building suspense, horror and mix of action.