Reviewing Monsters: Resident Evil 4 [Remake, 2023]

Resident Evil 4 Remake [2023]

So it's going to be quite some time before I actually play through the remake of Resident Evil 4. I am pleased to say that apparently the dseign team took the criticisms of Resident Evil 3 severely gimping the original game and cutting things out and promised that "nothing will be removed" from the far more iconic and well-known Resident Evil 4. And... to be frank, I'm excited about this game but I'm also a little bit terrified that it won't live up to my expectations. Resident Evil 4 is my favourite Resident Evil game of all time, and ranks up very, very high as one of my favourite games period, which is why I'm taking time to... well, basically 'prepare' myself for this game. I am happy to hear that the game is as universally beloved as the original that it's remaking, which gives me hope. 

That, and I've like a half-dozen other games to get through, and Steam refuses to put this game on sale. 

But I'm very much willing to see the designs of these monsters, and it's fun to see that all of the old favourites are back, including some new wacky additions to the Plaga family! I've already covered the original Resident Evil 4 way back when, so for the sake of not repeating myself too much I'll try to blaze through some of the enemies that didn't change too much in the HD-fication. 

Plaga

One of the biggest upgrades, I felt, are the actual Plaga parasites. The 2005 game clearly has some models for them, but they were rather simple and a bit lacking of detailing, relying more on supplementary artwork as well as the horror of these things bursting out of people's heads to be scary. But compared to the four-legged designs of the original RE4, the remake version goes all-in on the Alien Facehugger homage, giving the new Plaga parasites eight legs with some webbing on the most proximal end. In addition, the 'tail'-like body of the Plagas' body doesn't just trail behind it, but now curve upwards and point forwards like a scorpion. Several generations of video game graphics improvement have also made the little trailing tentacles and vines look a bit more nasty, especially if you imagine them using those tendrils to infiltrate someone's internal organs. 

I don't know if the remake still uses the original RE4 canon's division of 'eusocial' and 'dominant' Plagas, which I think is one of the biggest appeals of the remake for me -- that we'll get the RE2/RE3-remake or RE7/RE8 level of notes and information scattered in the overworld about the Plagas and the Los Illuminados cult. 

Again, it's always such a fun twist in RE4 for our hero Leon S. Kennedy as he tries to figure out the horror of these brand-new zombie-like creatures. How they are seemingly happy to be subservient to the Los Illuminados cult, and how the local villagers are still going on their day-to-day lives until the parasites decide to take over. It's something rather similar with certain types of parasitoids in real life where the host animal looks and acts fine -- or just a bit off -- like a snail infected with Leucochloridium or ants infected with Ophiocordyceps having some behaviour alteration of them moving into places where it'll benefit the parasite. 

Again, I'll update this review whenever I get to playing the RE4 remake, which could be anywhere between next month or next year. But rest assured, I'm definitely happy to see this massive visual upgrade that makes the lowly Plagas parasite look so much more sinister even though they didn't really change too much from the original. 

Ganado
The Ganado ('cattle') are still the primary enemy of the game, and they're still just Spanish villagers or psychotic castle-dwelling cultists with medieval weapons. Again, I don't have a whole ton to say about these the first time around, and I don't have much to say here other than the fact that they're the common enemies that chant more or less the same couple of phrases. Can't really say much about humanoid enemies, though the cultists look rather sinister. 

Apparently one of the improved parts of the remake is how sinsiter the 'cult' part of the game's setting is expanded, which I'm looking fowrard to talking about more whenever I play the game. 

Desnucado

One thing that I enjoy the most about the update in the RE4 remake is the expansion of the 'mutated' Ganados, where they are just called "Plaga A, Plaga B and Plaga C" in the original game's ancillary material. Here, we've got a bunch more stages and some fun names for them, like Desnucado ("broken neck" in Spanish), an intermediary stage between the regular 'human with parasite' Ganado to the more extreme mutations before. 

The Desnucado are mutations that happen on a Ganado after suffering fatal injuries. But the fact that the pain tolerance of these infected humans have increased, and they're being pupeteered by a powerful parasite, means that they can still shamble with a fatal wound -- and as the name and picture shows, this fatal wound is almost always a neck wound as the Desnucado walks towarsd leon with the head hanging broken and lolling on the side. Little tentacles of the internal Las Plagas parasite can be seen inside, and the end result is a nice, ghoulish addition that help sell another 'zombie' trope. 

Guadaña

Essentially the 'Plaga A' of the original game with some traits of 'Plaga C' is the Guadaña, meaning 'scythe' in Spanish. As per the original, the head burst open and has turned into a giant meat-tentacle of flesh tipped with a scythe... which here is much more obviously made out of bone. As in, the host's bones mutated and transformed into a bludgeon to defend the parasite within. The original game's artwork is a bit more ambiguous on whether that spiky tip are chitin from the Plagas' anatomy, but here there's an extra bit of squickiness when you realize that to make the scythe appendage, the Plagas probably is ripping apart the poor sod and rearranging the bones to make that blade. 

Originally I was about to bemoan that we lost the two almost comical snail eyeballs on the original game's "Plaga A"... until I realized that the eyeballs are still there. They're just nasty and creepily embedded into the mass of flesh sprouting out of the Guadaña's neck, looking somewhat like William Birkin's monstrous "G" forms. 

Mandíbula

The equivalents to 'Plaga B' in the original game are the Mandíbula (obviously, Spanish for 'mandible'), whose heads are replaced with gigantic masses of Plaga tissue that open up in a giant flower-shaped mouth, similar to the Majini from Resident Evil 5. Just like the Plaga B from the original game, the Mandíbula are have an instant-kill grapple attack where they grab Leon's head and try to force it into the giant mouth. They also gain an acid-spitting attack, though I don't 100% remember if the original Plaga B was able to do this or not. I think they could?

Anyway, I absolutely love the look of the Mandíbula. I honestly really just like the giant splayed-out four-petaled mouth look in general, which was what really endeared me to Resident Evil when I was first exposed to this franchise in the first place. 

Araña

And the final form of the evolution is the Araña (Spanish for 'spider'), which replaces Plaga C -- who normally take the form of an entire Facehugger replacing the head of their victim. Instead, the Plaga bursts out from the back of the poor Ganado's head, with its spidery claws and tentacles whiplashing around menacingly. The end result makes it look a bit more distinct compared to the Mandíbula/Plaga B, and it makes full use of the remake's far more detailed and menacing model for the Plaga parasites. 

I don't know how far they're planning to do the remakes, but these also remind me of the J'avo parasites from Resident Evil 6! The Araña can spit acid, and upon the death of their host, they can scuttle around and attack Leon like funny little Facehuggers... something that the original Plaga C could also do. The Araña is much stronger when controlling its host, and becomes severely weakened when detached from their hosts... again, a nice little nod to how some real-life obligate parasites can survive outside of their host... but not for long. Thus, detached Araña can jump and latch onto the back of lesser Ganado, hijacking them with their tendrils... though being parasitized by two Plagas at the same time often drives these Ganado into a frenzy. 

Brute

Replacing the generic bigger men with hammers in the original game are these far more sinister Brutes. Taking the 'Ganado' epithet rather literally, these Brutes walk around with giant cow heads covering their heads. They could be masks, but it's far more likely for these psychopaths to butcher the local cows and use them as masks. These are obviously just big, stronger people, and there are several variants -- some wielding large hammers and some wielding an auto-repeating crossbow (replacing the 'Gatling Man' miniboss in the original). I do like this little change, it makes the Los Illuminados feel more like a psychotic cult. 

Chainsaw Man, Giant Chainsaw Man, Chainsaw Sisters

Chainsaw Man's back! So are the Chainsaw Sisters! They're joined with a 'giant' variant wielding a double-bladed chainsaw! I assume that they still serve as minibosses that menace you through the game. Love that they have creepier head-wrappings. The eyes of the Chainsaw Man in particular looks a bit more sinister since the holes on his bag-mask are a bit bigger, while Giant Chainsaw Man's got a creepy clown face drawn on his bag. 

Colmillos

Oh yeah, the Colmillos ("Fangs") are so much more grislier in the remake! The base wolf form now looks hideously mutated, with gigantic fangs and teeth that are way too large for the gums and mouth, making them look unnatural even before they blow apart into gigantic tentacles. And when they do, it's not just like five tentacles as in the original game, but a mass of... well, you can see that it's like a bunch of intestines, tentacles and bone-spikes out of their body. It's a bit more over-the-top compared to the original game's Colmillos, but I appreciate the additional grotesqueness. 

Armadura

Armadura ("Armour") also make a return, and the added definition to the Plaga parasite tentacles make these things a lot more grislier as opposed to being comical. Just look at that mass of tentacles just pushing the helmet slightly ajar. The remake canonizes some additional explanation that's only told to us in supplementary material in the original game, noting that Plagas (presumably Arana) that have lost their hosts will inhabit these armoured suits, remaining dormant and stretching out their tentacles to manipulate the suit of armour when needed. That's a nice little detail, and helps to make the Armadura make a bit more sense in the context of this game. 

It also makes sense to explain why some Armadura are able to move around and chase Leon and Ashley, while some fall apart after swinging their weapon once -- those are presumably the ones where the Plagas are already on their last legs. 

Garrador

Oh yeah. Y'know I really don't have too much to say about a lot of these enemies, since for the most part the RE4 remake is extremely faithful to the original. Garrador ("Clawer") is a bit more heavier-set than his original RE4 counterpart, and he's got a lot more chains hanging off of his neck and arms to symbolize the whole 'beast locked up until he's let loose', but so many of the Garrador's important aspects are retained here. The over-the-top gigantic Wolverine claws, the torture gimp mask, the exposed Plaga on his back... I guess the fact that the Garrador's eyes are sown shut is a bit more obvious in this incarnation with the higher detailing!

Regenerator

Apparently called 'Regenerator' instead of Regenerador this time around, I always consider these guys to be one of the creepiest enemies in the original RE4. The others were more 'cool' or 'icky', but the Regenerator is always one that struck me as 'oh fuck this is unsettling. And with visible, beady creepy eyes and a model that really makes this thing look like a walking bodysuit instead of just a white humanoid makes the Regenerator somehow so much creepier. Look at that slightly slouched gait, and the rubbery skin, and the lumps on his feet. It's meant to represent how the constant high-speed regeneration has given them some rather cancerous-looking lumps. 

It's a couple small changes, but it does help fix my complaint about the original Regenerador -- it relies more on ambience, setting, its heavy breathing and the sheer indestructability for them to be scary. And kudos to the original game for doing that. I'm also happy that the RE4 remake understands this and didn't make the new Regenerator as over-the-top as something like the Rasklapanje, but changes just enough to make the Regenerator look terrifying on sight. Just like the original game, you need to hunt down the 'cores' wiggling within the Regenerator and shoot them to stop the corpse from constantly regenerating. 

Iron Maiden
The spikes for Iron Maiden are far longer than their original version, and I love just how tortured their face looks with the added definition and pixels. Taking a cue from the lesser Plagas minions, however, the designers decided to actually do the smart thing and straight-up make the Iron Maiden as 'evolved' Regenerators the way that the Guanadas and Aranas are 'mature versions' of the Ganados. It folds two 'repaint' enemies into a single species. Not too much to say here, they sure do look painful!

Novistadores

Novistadores are back! The actual design of the Novistadores ("Unseener") didn't really change all that much, surprisingly. Sure, we've got more joints and more grimy detailing on their bodies, and some extra spiky antennae, but the Novistadores look remarkably similar to the PS2 models from almost 20 years ago. Which really does speak to how well that game's design is, really! They still go invisible and still swarm and fly around and attack you as giant monstrous bug-men, but the remake actually offers some explanation as to why there's a nest of monstrous cockroach-people in the castle. 

The Novistadores are now given the codename "U-II", marking the Novistadores as the previous incarnation of the U-3 boss! That's a nice sense of continuity! And it's now specifically noted that the Novistadores are former humans, being an "experimental application" of Plagas/human fusion with insectoid genes. I've always enjoyed the Novistadores, and considering how much of RE3 they butchered, I was worried they'd cut out the bug-men that frankly don't have much to do with the Plagas plot. But I'm happy that they kept the cockroach-men around, but also even integrated them into the storyline. 

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Del Lago

Bosses, now! I really do think that these are going to be pretty short, since I'm going off of their visual appearances only. Del Lago ("From the Lake") gets a much nastier-looking upgrade than I expected, with its salamander maw turning from being rather stretched-out into a monstrous, multi-fanged lamprey. It's also got more defined rear legs, and the Plaga tentacles now don't just sprout from Del Lago's mouth but also trail behind it.

I've always loved Del Lago for being such an impressive set-piece and being such a visually intimidating and impressive giant boss, and we still even get to fight Del Lago on top of a boat! 

El Gigante

El Gigante ("The Giant") gets to be a fair bit more mutated, being a bit more exaggerated in being a giant LOTR troll. The artwork here also makes the giant parasite sprouting of Gigante's back a bit more obvious. But... I really othrewise don't have much to say about him. 

Father Bitores Mendez

Oh! Father Mendez! I think I like the almost zombie-like, exaggerated look of the original Mendez better, but it's really just nitpicking about the art style difference more than anything. Of course, just like the original game, Mendez would eventually be transformed by the Plagas and I love the update here. I don't know how many times I can repeat this, but we keep all of the important parts of the design -- the fact that his legs still look human, that his spine has turned into a fucking centipede, and that the upper body is a combination of his human torso and head, as well as a bunch of giant bug-parts. Just like the upgraded Plagas, Mendez's claws look a lot more like the jointed legs of an arthropod mixed with sinew, and I think the points of connection of the 'centipede spine' with Mendez's upper body looks so much grislier in this incarnation. 

Verdugo

I really don't think they changed a lot of the Verdugo's design, other than the obvious addition of extra details and more pixels. The upper body looks a bit bulkier and the tail segments have some extra grooves, but that's about it. The Verdugo ("Executioner") being bizarre Sith-looking armoured bug-men have always been pretty cool to me. Interestingly, the Verdugo are also given the codename "U-III" in the remake, which means that the original "U-3" (which still shows up) is a mutated, imperfect strain of this one? 

Ramon Salazar

Probably the biggest change is that Ramon Salazar now gets changed from being a literal man-child into a short, stunted old man that wouldn't look out of place among the cast of Resident Evil VIII: Village. He looks like a lunatic, but it's also rather interesting that his lack of growth seems to be because of the Plagas? The remake adds a lot more to the Salazar family and whatnot which we won't really cover here, even after I play the game... but it's also very nice to see that all the named characters get a fair bit of expansion. 

As with the original game, Salazar merges with the Queen Plagas into his gigantic boss form, and unlike most remake bosses, I can actually tell what's going on with Queen Plagas a lot better than the original. Most of the details are still preserved, but it's a bit more clear that it's a giant flower with Salazar sticking out of it. The original Salazar has always been one of the more underwhelming designs in the game (though the boss fight is fun), and while my mileage may vary when I play through the game myself, from a visual standpoint I do like this one a fair bit more. 

U-III "Pesanta"

The original game's U-3 enemy is now given the alternate name "Pesanta", or Spanish for peasant. The design is still the same with the original one and is as disturbing as the original, although the monstrous scorpion-tail-bug-mouth part gets way more parts and detailing to make it clear that it's a nightmarish amalgamation of random zombie parts. I love the fact that the giant monster mouth is actually made up of a bunch of skulls. The Pesanta's new arms also make it resemble a Verdugo a lot more, and since the remake also calls the Verdugo as a 'U-III', I guess 'Pesanta' here is a particularly evolved Verdugo... and the Verdugo's giant clawed arms does look far more threatening than the otherwise human hands that the original U-3 has. The Pesanta also has inherited the original Verdugos' face-mask thing, which makes the tongue a bit less gross... but the tongue is still there. 

U-III Pesanta in this game appears in Ada Wong's campaign in this version -- basically, while every detail from the original game is maintained, some pathways are now only explored by Ada Wong. And as such, U-III gets a backstory... he's actually Salazar's housekeeper, who was experimented upon and transformed into this hideous monster. U-III actually spends most of the game as one of the two Verdugo, and only mutates into this Pesanta form after a typical Resident Evil 'last-ditch mutation after nearly being killed'. 

Martinico

Martinico ("ghost") is the only real new enemy here, also only fought in the Ada Wong campaign. He's a particularly deformed test subject for the Los Illuminados, but is extremely powerful so the cult keeps him in one place. There are some nice detailing here like the hideously large maw, but he's otherwise just a big brute with chains... not the most exciting addition to the Los Illuminados family, I'm afraid. 

Major Jack Krauser

Jack Krauser! I... kinda forgot you're a boss fight, actually. But he sure gets a revamped backstory with Leon, and it's kind of interesting that he gets probably one of the most drastic reimagining. The original game's Krauser's monster form just has him replace one arm with an admittedly cool Plagas blade, but it really did feel kind of underwhelming, especially for a boss fight that happens so late in the game. While I appreciate Krauser not transforming into an over-the-top blob monster like U-III, Salazar or Saddler, I kind of expected more. 

The remake gives us something a bit nicer, where Krauser keeps 90% of his body, but both his arms have transformed into blades or crab claws, and those are really large claws. I like that his arms are a bit mottled from the Plagas mutation, but otherwise he still feels like he's intelligent and human underneath all that. 

Osmund Saddler

And we come to the final boss, Osmund Saddler, the lord of the Los Illuminados cult. Saddler's Plagas staff has gotten a massive upgrade to look more ragged and nasty, with multiple tentacles thrashing and squirming on it. I'll have to play through the game to experience how much they've upgraded his story component, but his boss form most certainly is improved a lot compared to the original. I've always liked the idea that Saddler's body is still hanging on the bottom of this monstrous form, but the original design had the limbs be a bit too spindly and the end spider-crab creature feels a bit ... underwhelming? 

The remake improves on this in almost all aspects, while still keeping the spiny 'hands' and the eyeballs on the legs, and even makes Saddler's detached head visible on the center of the monster form. The legs are far more armoured, and there seems to be a larger mass of tentacles and bones in the core of the figure, making it look less fragile. It ends up looking like a monster crab without actually having the silhouette of one. I like it. 

...and that's it! This is kind of a short little writeup for me to tie in to Halloween. And... I'm kind of pumped to play the remake, honestly, if nothing else just to see how much they improved the storytelling aspects of RE4. 

Movie Review: Resident Evil - Welcome to Raccoon City

Resident Evil : Welcome to Raccoon City [2021]

a.k.a. the modern adaptation of Resident Evil that didn't suck!

Because I didn't know what Netflix did, but that wasn't an adaptation, just... just a borrowing of IP. Welcome to Raccoon City, mind you, is hardly perfect. It smooshes together the main characters and vague plotlines of the STARS team going into the Spencer mansion in Resident Evil, as well as the outbreak in the city in Resident Evil 2, mixes all the main characters of both games together, exorcises a bunch of others and shuffles around their importance and competence. Plotlines and characters like Mr. X, Ada Wong, the mansion Tyrant and many others are dropped entirely, while characters that aren't connected are given a tenuous connection here for sake of drama. 

There are also a bunch of wink-wink-nod easter eggs like the 'itchy scratchy' bit (which felt a bit forced), the Jill sandwich joke (very forced), the trucker hitting the lady, the Ashford Twins (raise your hands if you know who they are!) and the admittedly fun recreation of the first zombie head-turn from the first RE1 game. 

When you really stop to think about it, a lot of the stuff in this movie aren't explained particularly well, and some of the new connections -- making William Birkins a mad scientist who also has the Redfield siblings as part of his orphanage, and has been harvesting kids from the orphanage, and also Lisa Trevor from RE1 is just a hulking monster that lives in said orphanage and its catacombs leading to the Spencer Mansion -- none of them are really adequately explained and just handwaved over. Some of the others (like the presence of the Lickers, the G-Virus or Lisa Trevor) you could at least rely on second-hand knowledge from the games, but overall the movie itself is kind of a mess in explaining things. 

But other than those minor problems? I had a blast watching this movie. We get some fun recreations of some iconic shots from RE1 and RE2, albeit 'remixed' to be in a bit of a different order. We get some pretty great casting, even if not all the characters are used to their fullest potential. Leon Kennedy never really grew out of his 'confused, handsome newbie' phase other than that single bazooka moment, while if we're being honest, Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield really don't do much. But at least they were treated relatively with respect. Claire Redfield takes the brunt of the characterization and being the 'face' of the good guys, although I'm still not sure if the random decision to make her part of William Birkin's creepy orphanage is really necessary. I suppose it gives us a clumsy way to tie in the RE2 and RE1 cast members as far as plotlines go?

Wesker also has his plot going on in the background, which is... serviceable. I feel like they try a bit too much to humanize Wesker and make this kind of a sympathetic backstory for him before he dons the shades in the mid-credits scene, but I do feel like the movie might be better served by having Albert Wesker actually be a conniving cold-hearted bitch. But I do like the interpretation of him as someone who's a bit over his head, especially when he realized that he just shot a father in front of his daughter. 

William Birkins (played by the glorious Neal McDonough) and Chief Irons (Donal Logue, a.k.a. Bullock from Gotham) also share in being absolutely entertaining. Birkins gets to ham shit up -- probably not as much as I would've preferred to -- before turning into a giant eyeball monster. It is kind of a shame that we do get a shoehorned plotline about him being Chris Redfield's surrogate father... Chris, Claire and Birkins share so little screentime together that it really feels like just something random they tried to work into the main plot but ended up leaving on the cutting room floor. 

Chief Irons, meanwhile, lasts a lot longer than his video game counterpart(s), doesn't get to have creepy pedophilic vibes, is as much of a dick as Donal Logue's hamminess allows him to be, and gets the glory of being killed by a Licker. Which, by the way, we actually get to see being creepily stalking in the shadows, but also jumping out and being glimpsed by our heroes in its creepy, eyeless, bulging-brain glory. Yes, it's not that much more detailed than the Licker model we see in the RE2 remake games, but you know what? At least it looks like a Licker, and at least we see that. 

Lisa Trevor, meanwhile, is an... interesting addition. Her addition really does feel shoehorned in, and while she is amazingly executed as a friendly monster that befriends Claire as a kid and ends up helping them out later, her arrival is so out of nowhere, and there's not really too much explanation beyond her being one of Birkins' pervious orphanage victims. Appropriately creepy and soulful, though, again, thanks to the movie having a bit too much characters, Lisa basically disappears after her mid-movie scene. 

I do really think the movie does try to do too much. The orphanage plot feels a bit forced, and characters like Sherry Birkin seems to be shoved there just out of obligation since she was in the original RE2 plotline. I do really feel like the movie's version of events -- characters trying to get out of the city, while another group is investigating a creepy mansion, and the two being linked by some shared backstory -- could've worked a lot better... but perhaps after some exorcising of plot elements. Maybe if they really went all-in on Birkins being an abusive parent-figure to the Redfield twins? All in all, though, definitely a more truer-to-text adaptation of the games compared to anything we've gotten so far. And in terms of actually delivering as far as a horror-action mix movie, yeah, I think this one does a decent, if not mind-blowing, job.

Movie Review: Resident Evil The Final Chapter

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter [2016]

[Disclaimer: these reviews were written in 2019 alongside a batch of the first three movies reviews, but I decided not to publish them in 2020 due to reasons, and these were pushed... way back]

And so it ends with a whimper, not a bang. Y'know, I've always thought that the second 'trilogy' of movies were a bit better in that they embraced the over-the-top ridiculous silliness that the franchise can be, but I must only have Retribution and Afterlife in mind. The Final Chapter is... honestly, a bit of a huge slog to watch through in that it jumps around so much. Not just the many moments where Alice gets knocked out and had fragmented images running through her mind in the first third of the movie, but this one suffers from a simple lack of focus. 

The concept of the movie itself is simple -- a final stand; Alice against Umbrella for the cure that will wipe out all the zombies on a post-apocalyptic earth. That's an all right concept for a final chapter in this movie franchise. Hell, even bringing things back to the Hive in Raccoon City, the location of the first movie, is pretty interesting, and I'm even a huge fan of bringing back Extinction's Alexander Isaacs (Iain Glen) to serve as the 'final villain', so to speak, sharing the stage with Albert Wesker. We get two of the movies' best villains teaming up together, and the Red Queen is always welcome as an unsettling part of the movie. Best of all, Red Queen's even playing a fun trope in combining 'unsettling child' with 'artificial intelligence doing interesting things while following her programming'. Some of the revelations, while they feel like ass-pulls created just for this movie, is even somewhat consistent with what we know about the movie universe. Things like the Alexander Isaacs that got zombified and killed in Extinction being a clone, or that Umbrella planned all this zombie apocalypse while most of their 'chosen' hid out in safety underground, or that Isaacs somehow outranks Wesker... not very sensible, but I can roll with it. Even all the revelations around Alice's backstory and why Umbrella is so dead-set on her is one that I can sort of get behind. Plot holes and retcons can be 'revelations' if framed right. Unfortunately, none of these are. 

What I can't get behind, though, is how the movie actually delivers this information to us.

Let's start with the beginning of the movie, shall we? Y'know, this movie has a franchise of having cliffhangers that they don't deliver on. Apocalypse ends with Alice, Carlos and company escaping on a van? Nope, next movie opens with the entire world dead. Extinction ends with an Alice clone army being born? Well, Afterlife at least does something fun with it for fifteen minutes. Afterlife ends with a huge helicopter Umbrella army about to blow up Arcadia? Again, Retribution does something fun with it for its opening credits roll. Retribution's end is actually a pretty fun cliffhanger that I remembered being excited for. Alice, Wesker, Jill, Ada and Leon all standing on the White House, against a horde of bioweapons and zombies, as humanity's last stand?

This movie doesn't even try and pretend to have anything to do with that cliffhanger other than 'welp, something happened, they all lost, Wesker betrayed them lol'. At least Alice doesn't get her story-breaking powers back, but the rest of this movie is honestly so bland that I kind of wished that she had. The real reason was probably that they couldn't get any of the other actors back, but at the very least some showcase of Wesker betraying Alice in the zombie horde would've made the first act of the movie not the dreary slog that it was. 

Because the first act of the movie was a dreary slog. Sure, the information about James Marcus trying to save her little girl, the first outbreak of the T-Virus, and establishing Isaacs and Wesker's backstory in the time before the movies? Okay, sure. But then Alice wakes up, fights the giant butterfly monster from Resident Evil 5 for quite a while, and then just sort of gets contacted by the Red Queen, who gives her the mission to infiltrate the Hive, steal the anti-virus they have just conveniently created, and that Umbrella is trying to wipe out humanity. 

And then we just have dreary dusty post-apocalyptic world, slogging on and on with Alice just getting knocked out and captured by an Umbrella convoy led by "Isaacs" (actually a clone), who just refuses to kill Alice for some reason and instead engages in a game of 'have her run tied to a rope behind our armoured convoy while we lead a zombie horde to the last human settlement in Raccoon City. It would've been a far more fun image if they actually tried to play up how absurd this is, but after a short action scene later, we get Alice... knocked out by the final group of survivors. It's like a repeat of the Walking Dead ripoff scene from Extinction and Afterlife where we have this 'survivors band together' sequence, except that I literally care for no one in this movie's human survivors. It's just Alice and Claire, and... everyone else there is literally interchangeable, none of them are really interesting enough for me to care for them. Sure, there's a mole there, but, again, there's nothing there that's really interesting. 

The action scene that happens next... we did get a fun martial arts sequence between Alice and Commander Chu, and the huge spectacle scene of Alice and company dropping ridiculously explosive and flammable oil down on the zombie horde and lighting a skyscraper on fire is over-the-top implausible but visually cool. But the rest of it is so dark and shadowy and so hard to tell what's going on... not that I really do care because, again, I don't care for anyone there other than Alice, Claire and Isaacs. 

Then we have the Umbrella infiltration sequence with a series of traps, which are ridiculous even by Resident Evil standards. Like that corridor that just has enough folding panels to drop one dude into a chute to nowhere, drop Alice into the slaughterhouse, and drop Claire into a glass box? Again, the pacing at this sequence was so, so slow. Sure, there's that brief action sequence against the Cerberus and the Bloodshot monsters, but those were so short and, again, shot in such dark, shadowy places and ended so abruptly that it's hard to care. (Really, the butterfly monster sequence probably should've happened here, too). 

We're nearly an hour into the movie and see a bunch of people whose names I don't remember get killed by turbine traps, zombie dogs and finger-slicing chutes until we actually get to the story that the movie really wants to tell, and we get the long exposition that Alexander Isaacs and the rest of Umbrella's high command has basically cryogenically frozen a bunch of people under the ground; that Alice is a clone of Alicia Marcus, dead daughter of Umbrella's co-founder James Marcus; that the Red Queen is a digital clone of young Alicia Marcus; and that, apparently, the real Alexander Isaacs and Alicia Marcus are just chilling in cryo-pods. And somehow, there's this utterly bizarre sub-plot where Isaacs and Marcus are arguing over... shareholders or something? What? In a post-apocalyptic world, and one where Wesker is clearly not loyal to anyone but Isaacs, I'm genuinely baffled that they even bothered waking up old Alicia Marcus instead of just letting her suffocate, or having Wesker shoot her or something. It's bizarre. 

Speaking of which, Wesker, who was established in previous movies to be superhuman, and also being able to have enough plot armour to survive bombs, helicopter crashes, point-blank shotgun shots to the head and apparently the White House zombie apocalypse... gets like half a leg trapped and somehow he's dying? At least give the courtesy to have half his body pinned there or something. 

We then get a very bland sub-plot of Claire's boyfriend being the Umbrella mole (which ended poorly for random boyfriend), Marcus 'fires' Wesker in the movie's best and most hilarious moment and allows Red Queen to smash half of Wesker flat... and we get an honestly pretty lackluster and extended fight against the real Alexander Isaacs, who has some cyborg Sherlock Holmes style "I can predict what you are going to do" ability. Which is... not particularly interesting. Alice eventually does a silly grenade trick with Isaacs in the laser corridor(tm), which is honestly just there just so the movie can go "hey, look the laser corridor, everyone reminds that about the awesome first movie, right?" Except the fight scenes in this sequence in particular just jump from one camera angle to the next so rapidly and it's just not fun at all to see. 

And then we get the confrontation between Alice, the real Isaacs, and the clone Isaacs from the first act. The two Isaacs kill each other, and Alice releases the anti-virus... which is also airborne and can also kill all the zombies in the world, apparently. Simultaneously Wesker dies, drops the dead man's switch and blows up the entirety of the Hive, killing Marcus and the hibernating Umbrella clients. And then Claire (who got out somehow?) sees Alice, and the Red Queen reveals that apparently the whole movie is a secret test of character to see if Alice would make the willing sacrifice... because... uh... fuck the rest of humanity if she fails, I guess?

Speaking of which, Alice was always a generic stoic badass action hero in these movies, but she always has something that makes me don't mind her. Extinction gave her a fair amount of cloning blues. Afterlife sort of kind of gave her survivor's guilt. Retribution gave her a daughter (who goes unmourned and unmentioned here). But despite learning that she's a clone, and of a woman whose disease is one of the first causes of the T-Virus... nope, Alice has absolutely zero reaction. Jovovich does her best, but when the script is as tepid as it is, I can't blame her for not really being able to bring out anything out of her character in this one. Again, I don't mind the concept of all these huge revelations that the entire Resident Evil zombie apocalypse saga revolves around Alice... except it's not delivered well at all and Alice herself barely reacts to any of this. 

And that's it. That's honestly a pretty terrible movie to go out on. All five of the movies have given me something to enjoy -- some more than the others, but The Final Chapter is just a huge, huge mess. The sad part is, I could've seen a fun movie if they had a bit more of a solid writing and editing team. On the hands of a good team, the story here around Alice would've been poignant and dramatic. Instead it's just pointless stalling and gruesome deaths around a bunch of huge revelations that they never really do anything with. 

Random Notes:

• The lack of closure with any of the characters bar Alice and Isaacs is particularly jarring. Claire is brought back just for a pointless 'oh no my boyfriend is evil' subplot and really does jack-all throughout the movie. Wesker gets reduced to doing nothing and standing cool and dying like a bitch. Not even a single mention of Chris Redfield. Not even a vague 'Jill, Ada and Leon died'.
• So I never really quite understood why Alexander Isaacs would adopt Alicia Marcus, who not only witnessed her father's death, but also in her older age also vehemently opposed Isaacs. Even if he didn't kill her pre-zombie-outbreak, wouldn't he have done so after Extinction?
• Even more egregious is the lack of mention of Becky, the surrogate daughter Alice risked her entire life for in Retribution and the source of some much-needed characterization for Alice. Nope, not even mentioned at all. 
• Speaking of which, considering that Wesker's plan was to kill Alice and the survivors, the bizarre 'gambit' presented here that he imprisoned Alice in that underwater base and staged an elaborate rescue mission throughout Retribution just made that whole movie a bizarre, pointless distraction in terms of an Umbrella ploy. Which is a shame, because Retribution is one of the more entertaining movies. 
• Speaking of dumb Wesker things, in this movie he could definitely have killed the entire team in the giant fan of doom, but he shuts that off after killing Batwoman (also, hey, Ruby Rose is in this movie!) because... uh... reasons?
• Also stupidity in this movie is the Umbrella road ambush. Which worked for some reason despite this being a world with 4000 humans left, but also because despite catching Alice in their trap, they play pinata with her instead of shooting her in the head. 
• Also also Isaacs clone had like three different opportunities of killing Alice in that armoured vehicle. 
• Also also also, they just literally left that huge door to the Hive open. Despite the fact that Wesker and Red Queen clearly is able to shut it remotely. 
• How the hell did Wesker survive the massive bioweapon attack in the White House, and not made sure Alice had also died? T-virus enhancements and mutant powers, probably, but it's not like he uses that at all in this movie, and I completely forgot that this Wesker is supposed to have it. 
• Isaacs outranking Wesker is one of the less bizarre retcons, but I still have to point it out. Isaacs was really just treated as just some high-ranking scientist in a facility in Apocalypse and Extinction, and clearly Wesker was calling the shots there. And Wesker is basically stated to be chairman in Extinction and Afterlife... so yeah. 
• The Red Queen can't kill Umbrella employees... forgetting that her very first appearance has her kill an entire facility of Umbrella employees. Oy. 
• Isaacs, being a cybernetically enhanced superhuman, couldn't kill Alicia Marcus, a woman on a wheelchair? Also, with his super-speed, he could've had stolen the dead man's switch from Wesker. Or, later on in the movie, killed the clearly-crazy Clone Isaacs with his super-speed. 
• Umbrella being behind all of this all along makes absolutely less sense when you realize that the nuclear bombing of Raccoon City was engineered by Umbrella in Apocalypse as a cover-up... a cover-up that would've wiped out their entire population of 'high command' hidden underneath Raccoon City. 
• There was a lot more cryogenically-stored humans in the Hive than what you would expect for "Umbrella High Command"... this either means that they had a lot more civilians or their families with them down there. 
• A simple edit of someone revealing that they are clones would probably make it less of an unintentionally brutal move for Alice to kill all of them.
• Praising a cool thing of the movie? The Red Queen is 100% on fire in her snarking at Wesker and Isaacs throughout the movie. "You're all going to die down here" for real! 

Movie Review: Resident Evil - Retribution

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

[Disclaimer: these reviews were written in 2019 alongside a batch of the first three movies reviews, but I decided not to publish them in 2020 due to reasons, and these were pushed... way back]

Otherwise known as 'the first Resident Evil movie I watched on the big screen'. It's been a while now and I could've sworn I watched Afterlife at some point before Retribution, but Retribution was definitely the first real part of this franchise that I jumped into... and hoo boy, what a strange feeling it was. And yet the movie basically handwaves all the backstory into a huge exposition near the beginning, then puts it on the backburner as Alice goes off to basically play around in an Aliens storyline? It's bizarre, honestly. I do think that the movie works as a standalone movie since, well, I enjoyed it the first time I watched it.

By the standards of this movie franchise, though... hoo boy, it sure is a weird one. 

The idea is a bit of an interesting one. We get a callback to all the previous movies, including the fact that Umbrella has access to super-sophisticated cloning facilities (which we saw in Extinction), that they can clone characters from previous movies (we get Resident Evil's Agent One and Rain; and Apocalypse/Extinction's Carlos Olivera), and they have mind-control device (Apocalypse's Jill Valentine, last seen in the previous movie's mid-credits sequence) and access to super-powerful bioweapons like the Lickers and Executioners. We get the return of the movie franchise's two biggest antagonists, Albert Wesker and the Red Queen, each trying to one-up the other in their whole plan for... world domination of this post-apocalyptic world or something. And yet it all takes a backseat to the story of Alice wandering around the impractically large underwater base that Umbrella has all this time. Honestly, at this point, I'm just taking the video game route of shrugging and accepting the ridiculousness of what it is. 

The last movie's huge cliffhanger gets quickly shown as Jill Valentine and her army of faceless Umbrella goons murder or capture everyone on board the Arcadia. Chris, Claire, K-Mart? Who cares about them, Alice is the main character, right? They're not the concern of this movie, and Alice just wakes up. The movie does a repeat of Extinction's fake-out cold open, by having 'an' Alice wake up. Turns out that this is a clone Alice in a regular suburban city, married to Carlos Todd with a deaf daughter called Becky. Then ZOMBIE ATTACK! The zombie attack scene was pretty well-shot and pretty fun, featuring yet another return of the flower-mouthed Majini zombies (honestly one of my favourite visuals in the live-action movies). After a brief encounter with Michelle Rodriguez's character Rain, this Alice fights against the zombified Todd and they both die in the process. Mind-fuck, right? Not really, no, it's pretty obvious what this is if you kind of stop to think about the kinds of sci-fi that this movie franchise likes to deal with. 

And it's not a terrible concept on its own, really, but at the same time there's a huge amount of 'why, though' niggling at the back of my head. The real Alice wakes up naked (of course) before being freed (of course) by a power outage. She finds herself in fake Tokyo, fighting against zombies including a pretty cool sequence with a chain weapon and... and this basically really is what we're here to tune into these movies for, yeah? Cool, over-the-top action sequences. Except that the movie makers still try to bring in the video game characters into the movie lore, which I feel like maybe they should just try and just... do their own thing if they want to?

Ada Wong is cool, though. Played by Li Bingbing and showing just how someone can pull off crazy kung fu stunts in that dress, she introduces herself as Alice's unlikely ally... and that she's also working for Albert Wesker, who survives and is also betraying Umbrella, which is taken over by the Red Queen? Okay, sure. Just... just accept that it happened off-screen somehow. Wesker's the lesser evil, I guess, and the Red Queen is now evil... because? Just because. We get the explanation that Alice is trapped in an underwater grand facility that contains fake versions of different capital cities, all populated by Umbrella-made clones in order to stage the outbreaks. Which, despite the world already in a post-apocalyptic state, the Red Queen still continues to do over and over. It's a cool visual, right? Also, Wesker needs Alice to be rescued for plot reasons because Alice is a walking MacGuffin.

Alice and Ada have to fight their way through video-game levels the fake cities to rendezvous with a team of human survivors led by Leon Kennedy and Barry Burton from the games; and Luther West from the previous movie. And a bunch of other mooks that quickly die because they are unimportant. After this huge exposition sequence, we get the typical tense music and action scenes. Alice and Ada fight against two giant Executioner Majini in Fake Times Square, which... not going to lie, is awesome. Alice is still the writers' favourite character, but at least they're willing to give secondary characters a chance to shine, too, because Ada Wong gets a couple of badass action sequences here. The Leon/Luther squad get pinned down by a mass amount of Las Plagas in the Moscow zone, which hilariously has things like chainsaws and rocket launchers (accurate to the games but very random in the movies) and most of the non-named characters get killed by the grinning Plagas zombies.

Alice and Ada, meanwhile, encounter little Becky from the prologue, and we get the Aliens plot! Badass woman protagonist meets scared child, and her maternal instinct activates. I'm not complaining, giving an established badass the chance to take care of a child is an easy but effective way to give him or her a chance to get some primo characterization. Just see Ripley, Wolverine, Mandalorian, et cetera. And Becky's state of mistaking Alice-Prime for one of the faceless clones that served as her mom is... an interesting one. It's just a shame that the movie doesn't really try to explore this too much beyond 'protect the child!' 

Also speaking of wasted potentials, Alice and Ada fight against a group of clones of Alice's old allies. We've got One, we've got Rain, we've got Carlos. And sure, seeing the actors back and everything is very cool (even though I don't think Evil Carlos even got a memorable line). And... and we don't even get anything much out of them beyond 'look at this good guys doing evil things'. Alice gets with the program that these guys are clones almost immediately, which is understandable since she's dealt with clones before, but it brings to mind what the Doylist point of bringing these clones back in the first place. Hell, as Alice and Becky meet up with 'good' Rain, she doesn't even get to meet her evil clone! We don't even get that obvious subplot!

Alice leaves Good Rain and Becky behind to steal a sports car for some street stunts, because at this point the survivors of Team Leon are trying to escape the car-driving Plagas zombies in a pretty entertaining explody-splody car chase. The Red Queen unleashes a particularly giant Licker, and with Alice's help, the good guys escape by, uh, launching the car into a subway station which sure looks awesome but also is clearly impractical. The giant Licker seemingly gets buried. We jump to the next action scene, where they are about to go up the lift, but mind-controlled Jill Valentine and the Clone Squad arrive. Good Rain gets killed with little fanfare, Becky is abducted (Aliens!) and cocooned (ALIENSSSS), and the secondary characters shoot at each other while Alice goes off to recover Becky. It happens kind of quickly, but I actually do like Barry Burton's last stand. Again, kind of over-the-top and I really wish the movie gives us more to care about Barry beyond his red jacket and one or two zingers, but him doing a mutual kill with Agent One is pretty neat.

Alice killing the Giant Licker happens a bit quickly, too, although she and Becky at least gets a token bit of seeing the clone factory and Alice's line of "I'm your mom now". Again, the setup to reach this sequence is kind of messy, but I did like the Alice/Becky sequence. Anyway, Leon and Luther manage to escape with the lifts, the bombs they put earlier in the movie explode and destroy the facility (and kills clone Carlos very unceremoniously). 

Hey, the movie is over, and they can return to their base, right? Not really, because Jill Valentine and Clone Rain show up with a giant submarine that breaks the ice. They hold Ada Wong hostage, and we get a final boss fight battle. And... the choreography between Alice and Ada is actually pretty cool! They keep pulling out wacky weapons like spiky staves and fold-out scythes and that's pretty neat. Clone Rain, meanwhile, injects herself with the Las Plagas parasite which basically turns her into a bullet-immune Wolverine-style character, spitting out bullets from her fingertips, and Rain fights both Leon and Luther. Luther gets killed with a chest palm strike; Alice rips the mind-control spider from Jill's chest, and Clone Rain manages to beat everyone and is actually pretty badass. Alice eventually shoots out the ice under Rain's foot, causing her to fall into the water and be dragged down by underwater zombies. 

Again... it's an action scene where 'this thing happens, then that thing happens', but sure, it's pretty entertaining. Time for an epilogue, too, as the survivors bugger off to the White House, where Albert Wesker smugly sits in the Oval Office. He re-infects Alice to give her back her superhuman powers (god damn it, movie makers) in order to turn her into the 'ultimate weapon', and the final shot is that of the White House under siege not only by a horde of zombies, but giant flying zombie moths. 

And... and hoo boy, what an interesting movie, huh? The actual story of Alice and company escaping the underwater base is actually pretty solid. Michelle Rodrigues and Sienna Guillory play pretty fun and badass antagonists. Hell, I'd even go as saying the Alice/Becky storyline is all right. And the action scene is sure fun, and there are a lot of great moments in the movie all around. But honestly, as an installment in an ongoing series? It's extremely messy. None of the homages really work out all that well, and the attempted 'canon welding' or whatever the hell they're doing here feel like two steps back after Afterlife. It's still fun to watch, ultimately, because the shameless video-game visuals of jumping from one city 'stage' to the next and the higher-than-normal amount of action scenes makes it a fun action movie, but ultimately it's a messy one with a lot of missed potentials. 

Random Notes:

• Mind-controlled Jill Valentine is an actual boss from Resident Evil 5, complete with purple spy bodysuit. The 'Las Plagas Undead', explicitly named by the Red Queen, are sort-of based on the Las Plagas from Resident Evil 4, except a whole more over-the-top and without actually showing the zombie flower-mouths exhibited elsewhere in Afterlife and Retribution. The actual Plagas enemies in RE4 actually do use chainsaws and rocket launchers, though. The Kipipeo giant moth. makes a couple of brief cameos at the end of the movie. 
• The RE5-style flower-mouth Plagas and the Executioner Majini make a return after appearing in the previous movie. The Lickers return from the first two movies of this franchise, albeit this one is far more giant and muscular. 
• Leon Kennedy, Ada Wong and Barry Burton from the games make their cinematic debuts here. Ada is more or less pretty similar to her game counterpart as far as her role goes, but the other two are kind of just there. The 'J-Pop Girl' at the opening sequence of Afterlife also makes a return cameo here!
• Meanwhile, the fates of the Redfield siblings are left utterly ambiguous, because the actors are unable to return due to scheduling conflicts -- Claire does return in the next and final one, though. 
• So the ridiculously resourceful Umbrella corporation has access not only to cloning technology, but also to entire blocks modeled after the world's biggest cities (we see at least New York, Tokyo and Moscow) and is able to have massive cloning facilities, with each clone having enough of an implanted personality to behave and think that they are regular people... all just to demonstrate the power of the T-Virus. All that despite the cloning thing (or even the fake cities) being probably far, far more marketable. 
• Speaking of which, at least this sort of clears up where Umbrella keeps getting their seemingly endless source of faceless soldier-men in Extinction and Afterlife. Sort of.
• If Umbrella can basically implant memories to make the clones loyal to them, why not implant said memories to make an army of Umbrella-loyal psychic Alice clones? 
• Poor Clone Carlos really doesn't even get a good moment, huh? 
• Clone Rain's Plagas-injecting syringe is actually point-for-point identical to the syringe used in the Resident Evil 4 game. Clone Rain ejecting bullets out of her fingers thanks to her Plagas mutation is also something done by the final boss of RE4, Saddler. 
• I'm still not entirely sure how a mind-control device is placed on one's chest instead of the head or spine, and... and somehow when Alice rips it out, there isn't even like any scars. Okay. 

Movie Review: Resident Evil - Afterlife

Resident Evil: Afterlife [2010]

[Disclaimer: these reviews were written in 2019 alongside a batch of the first three movies reviews, but I decided not to publish them in 2020 due to reasons, and these were pushed... way back]

So after reviewing the original three movies in the Resident Evil movies, we sort of begin the... 'sequel trilogy'? Can we even call it a sequel trilogy when Extinction ended with what's essentially a cliffhanger? The 'second phase' might work better, I suppose. And... and there's a significant feel of trying to retool what was poorly received in the first three (well, the second and the third) movies, and it's pretty interesting. I do really like this attempt at trying to steer the franchise in a completely different direction after the 'but why' ending of Extinction, but the movie doesn't just want us to forget all about it and tries to at least resolve the hanging plot threads. 

So after the cool showcase of the zombie outbreak in Japan (completely unnecessary but very cool) we wrap up the storyline from Extinction, with a pretty fun and gratuitously over-the-top action sequence featuring katanas, secret bases, clones, psychic Jedi blasts, rappelling down a couple dozen floors and Milla Jovovich in leather spy suits. Honestly, this opening sequence of the psychic Alice clones doing hilariously over-the-top action sequences as they murder random Umbrella goons is just pretty fun to watch. It's really what I tune into these movies, the Underworld and the Transformers series of the world for. 

The movie also hammers home and sets up Albert Wesker (recasted into Shawn Roberts) and I do really like the clam, implacable Matrix-copy vibe they were going on for Wesker here. He genuinely feels sinister, and his establishing character moment of shooting one of his goons dead for daring to speak up against flooding half the base with nerve gas is pretty basic 'look at the villain he's so evil' trope, but it's effective. Then despite all his bluster Wesker buggers off on an escape vehicle, using a giant explosion bomb that looks like it came straight out of Gundam or something to blow up what remains of Tokyo. This, by the way, gets rid of the Alice clones, which... thank god for that. I've said how ridiculous and out-of-place it feels even in this franchise, and I do like that at least the movie gave us around ten to fifteen minutes of high-octane over-the-top action scenes with these psychic superspies so we at least get a cool action scene out of them. 

Wesker and Alice 'Prime' fight on top of the plane-copter, and in a very obvious way for the story to, again, re-align itself, Wesker injects Alice with the cure to the T-Virus, wiping out not only the virus but her story-breaking psychic powers, reducing her to a 'normal' human. A normal human with plot armour, but at least we don't have to spend the whole movie and the next couple of movies going 'if she has psychic Jedi powers why doesn't she just do X'. And, y'know, as ridiculous as Resident Evil can get it's no place for a psychic-powered superhuman protagonist. 

Then the plane crashes into a mountain (hilariously, because Wesker forgot to put on autopilot) and Alice stumbles away from the crash. And... and we get a montage of Alice wandering around for six months and obtaining an airplane through one way or another, flying off to Alaska to search for Claire Redfield's group from the previous movie that went off to go to the sanctuary of Arcadia. Again, I like that they're basically cherry-picking what worked in the previous movie and what didn't -- it's not a perfect science, but it's something. Alice gets attacked by Claire Redfield, who's apparently gone crazy, amnesiac (groan) and also mind-controlled by a robot spider. Honestly the amnesia thing really adds nothing to the story other than delaying the Chris/Claire Redfield reunion... but then we don't get much out of the reunion anyway so I'm not sure why they bothered. Since Alice and Claire become fast buddies while on the place to fly from Alaska to L.A., I'm not sure why they really bothered with the amnesia thing anyway. 

Los Angeles in ruins looks pretty great, by the way -- again, it's CGI, and it's decade-old CGI, but I do feel like they do a much better job showcasing the ruins of Tokyo and L.A. and made them so much more interesting backdrops for the movie than 'generic American desert wasteland' in the previous one. After flying around a prison (Walking Dead much) and engineering a landing, Alice and Claire meet up with a group of survivors in the prison. There are a bunch of them, but they are rapid-fire introduced to us and it's clear which ones are meant to be important. Main resistance leader man Luther West is the badass black dude that was an ex-sports-star and is both badass but nice to our two female leads. There's the asshole movie producer Bennett, a couple characters that are attached tangentially to him (his mousy intern and an angry actress), a bunch of extra faces... and a prisoner locked in a high-security cell, one Chris Redfield. Chris's story and the general vibe that Wentworth Miller gives does exude a 'bad boy' attitude that could easily go either way. It really is kind of obvious the movie wants us to root with Chris and that he's not secretly an evil murderer, but it's a decent set-up. 

The revelation that Arcadia is actually not a place in Alaska but a giant tanker ship is actually a relatively sensible one, and a ship actually makes sense to be a haven from the zombies on land and stuff. It gives our heroes on the prison besieged by a gigantic horde of zombies a goal. After a break-in when some brand-new zombies with mutated mouths (LAS PLAGAS!) arrive and kill the pervert survivor, the group decide to free Chris Redfield and start to gather weapons. 

This sequence is pretty tense and honestly very fun, even if it's pretty obvious anyone without the names 'Alice' or 'Redfield' is doomed to die. Bennett stabs Angel and steals the plane to fly off to Arcadia on his own; Crystal gets killed by watery zombies; Yong is killed by the glorious arrival of this movie's 'miniboss', the Executioner Majini from Resident Evil 5. There's no goddamn explanation just as to why there's a giant, towering zombie man with a burlap sack on his head holding an impractically large hammer-axe, but hey, he sure exists! 

And you know what? Just like the Umbrella assault earlier in the movie, the action scene here is ridiculous, over-the-top, impractical, yet just a delight to watch. Kudos goes to Alice's awesome bungee jump away from the top of the building while setting the roof to blow, as well as everything involving those clearly-impractical-in-real-life-but-it's-cool-shut-up coin buckshot shotguns. And, of course, the boss fight against the Majini, which has Alice and Claire team up to fight the behemoth. Again, while the main protagonist of these movies (and the ones to deal the 'final blow' to both Majini and Wesker later on) is still Alice, there's a concerted effort in making the 'canon' characters from the game look like badasses themselves so they don't flounder around and just exist to gape at Alice like Jill Valentine in Apocalypse. It's a pretty cool mid-movie fight for sure!

And then after Luther gets written out by surprise tunnel collapse and zombies pulling him (he gets better, at least), we get just Alice and the Redfields buggering off to Arcadia... and, of course, Umbrella is behind everything because Umbrella. Claire's memory sort of return, and they figure out that the boat and is creepily iPod-smooth internal architecture is a way for Umbrella to trap and capture test subjects. They release all the prisoners, of course, including last movie's K-Mart (who doesn't really do anything but hey she's alive). But the presence of a trail of blood and the lack of Umbrella personnel means that something is wrong...

And Albert Wesker is here, sitting on his throne, looking smug as ever. Bennett (who is... an intelligent zombie or something? Or just haggard?) is also working for Wesker, as are two zombie dogs. Wesker's Zombie dogs have their front halves split open into two jaws in the style of the Plaga, and it's gross and awesome in the same breath. Wesker monologues a bit, where he's fighting the T-virus for control after the extreme state that the T-virus has to bring him back from, and Wesker wants to devour Alice's DNA because she had bonded with the T-virus perfectly before. It's sort of the 'Alice is special' bit from the previous movie, but without all the 'you have clones though' plot head-scratcher that Extinction had. 

And then we have a final battle sequence, including some fun slow-motion stuff. The zombie dogs are neat, and I absolutely love just how ridiculous Wesker is when he tosses his sunglasses and we get a dedicated slow-motion effect before Wesker uses his super-human Flash-speed to fight the Redfields. Wesker is at least pretty cool, and the zombie dogs are neat, although I did feel like this action scene felt a lot less entertaining than the over-the-top Majini or Tokyo battles. Still, it's fun, and we get K-Mart showing up to help bash Bennett in the face. Again, Alice gets to be the main protagonist here, succeeding where the Redfields failed (and got themselves stuck in glass tubes for their trouble) and they riddle Wesker and the hideous spiky, tentacly mouth-part he's got inside him. 

The good guys lock Wesker's corpse and Bennett in the room, but then Wesker survives, eats Bennett, and Wesker breaks out off-screen and escapes on a helicopter, ready to blow Arcadia up... but surprise, the bomb is on Wesker's helicopter! The movie plays this out like it's this awesome Batman gambit on Alice's team's part, but I felt like they definitely could've foreshadowed this better. Also, Luther survives. Also also, Wesker survives. Also also also, just as the movie is about to end in a positive note with Alice and the Redfields taking over Arcadia as how it was intended to... a giant squadron of Umbrella jet-copters arrive, led by a mind-controlled Jill Valentine! These movies will never not have a cliffhanger!

Overall? Overall it's... it's an interesting movie. It's still kind of messy in places, and I honestly would've rather had a movie where Alice and her allies are hunting down Wesker instead of the vague 'okay, we sort of don't know what to do now, I guess just survive' sequence in the middle. But then the prison scene and the idea of a location besieged by zombies is admittedly kind of cool and something different compared to the other Resident Evil movies. The story really does help push Umbrella and Wesker into the forefront as far as villains go, and they're not afraid to embrace other kinds of bio-engineered ridiculousness like the Majini or the Plagas, and definitely those dogs. It's not a great movie by any means, but definitely an entertaining one with some pretty great action scenes. 

Random Notes:

• This was the first Resident Evil movie I watch in the movies and despite the recap at the beginning (and not knowing what the heck is going on) I feel like the movie actually still works as long as you pay attention to the recap. I suppose that's the good part of having a very prominent 'Alice is the Main Character tm' deal going on.
• Speaking of watching this in the cinemas, this was released at around the time when everyone and their mother tried to really promote movies in 3D. It's been more than a decade, so I couldn't tell you if this was good or not. 
• The Las Plagas (well, this specific flower-mouth appearance, anyway) and Majini were from Resident Evil 5, which was at the point one of the most current Resident Evil game. I think the intention (and it's certainly stated in things like fan wikis and stuff) was that the specific Plagas zombie and the Majini that knew to tunnel into the building's bathroom were sent by Wesker, but the movie's really lousy at showing that to us. 
• The zombie dogs that split apart in the middle are based on the Adjule from Resident Evil 5.
• OKAY THOUGH BUT DID THEY HAVE TO MAKE THE T-VIRUS BE SHAPED LIKE ACTUAL T'S. NO SERIOUSLY THAT'S LOW-KEY SO GOD DAMN FUNNY
• Oh hey, speaking of Umbrella monetizing something completely different... in addition to the cloning stuff that they are revealed to have perfected in the previous movie, this one shows that they have access to mind-control crystal spider robots. Gee, either one of these would be so much better to monetize instead of a goddamn zombie plague, don't you think, Wesker? 
• The movie doesn't point it out, but there are clearly plants in the world, so I'm just going to say that Alice's monologue about how the T-Virus 'kills' the planet in the third movie is all bullshit. 
• The movie isn't even trying to keep Wesker's survival ambiguous, there's that bit with a dude in a parachute in the background in the scene where Luther survived. 
• It's a small thing, but the opening theme as the camera slowly pans down on Tokyo and the J-Pop girl is very, very neat. That single track sort of jumps out to me. 
• There's a mid-credits sequence with Jill Valentine in her badass purple super-spy suit. And, of course, the weird mind-control spider in her cleavage, something that at least the showmakers have the excuse of copying right from the video games. 
• The coin-shotguns are absolutely corny and is one of those obvious 'this will look good on 3D' thing. It's also a very obvious 'this is so goofy-ass stupid but it'll be cool' moments, and you know what? I ain't complaining. 
• It's par the course for the franchise, but if either Alice Prime or Wesker knew to shut up and actually do what they were there to do in the beginning fight on the Umbrella jet-copter, the movie would've ended so much earlier. Speaking of idiocy, the fact that Wesker forgot to pilot the plane is hilarious. 
• Let's talk about Umbrella's absolutely bizarre contingency bomb, huh? It somehow expands outwards in this swirling energy sphere straight out of anime... and then collapses back on itself. Is it like a gravity bomb or something? And the one in Tokyo's Umbrella base is big enough to consume the whole city, but the one on the Arcadia only consumed Wesker's ship mid-flight? Huh. 
• I don't call it an ass-pull that Wesker flew off in the one helicopter that they've moved the bomb into; in addition to Alice knowing Wesker's modus operandi, that one ship was the only one whose ramp was opened and cleared for takeoff, with the implication that our heroes set it up that way. 
• Speaking of which... if Alice Prime knew that Wesker was going to escape and blew up the base... very cold of her to leave all of her clones to die like that, huh. 
• Captain Cold is Chris Redfield! Also, just like the CW shows, apparently Afterlife can't resist throwing in a Prison Break joke either. 

Reviewing Monsters: Resident Evil Revelations 2

Resident Evil: Revelations 2 [2015]

Certainly not the last Resident Evil game by a long shot -- it's released five years ago, we've got RE7, the remakes of RE2 and RE3, and a bunch of other side-games in-between them -- but it's going to be our last Resident Evil review until we get good high-def pictures of Resident Evil VIII's monsters.

Not a whole ton to say here, Revelations 2 basically takes up the characters that have been somewhat ignored by more recent mainline series games (RE2's Claire Redfield, plus fandom favourite side character Barry Burton from the first game) and tosses them into a storyline! This is a sort of an attempt at course-correction after Resident Evil 6, attempting to bring the series from super-action back to horror, although emphasis on the 'attempt', and they arguably they wouldn't really succeed until REVII. 

This one, in particular, tries just a bit too hard to shoehorn an eye-rolling amount of blood'n'gore in its monster designs, as well as trying to shoehorn in a psychological-horror bit with the T-Phobos virus that I don't feel worked out quite as well as they intended.

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The Story

After the events of Resident Evil CODE: Veronica, Claire Redfield has chosen a different path and has became the head of the anti-bioterror protest organization TerraSave (something detailed in some tie-in movies released much earlier). However, during a celebration in TerraSave headquarters, Claire and one of her partners, Moira Burton (daughter of former STARS agent Barry Burton), gets captured by a group of mysterious masked assailants. Claire and Moira wakes up in an abandoned prison, finding themselves fighting against monstrous shambling creatures. As they try to survive the labyrinthine prison, a female voice called the 'Overseer' guides them through the compound with cryptic poetry-like hints. To their despair, after fighting their way through the prison, they find out that the prison itself is located on the remote Sejm Island. Claire and Moira make their way to a neighbouring town, making allies out of a group of abductees -- Neil Fisher, Gabriel Chavez, Pedro Fernandez and the young girl Natalia Korda-- and try to formulate a plan to escape. However, the Overseer betrays them, turning on loud alarms that draw the monsters to them. Pedro and Gabriel are killed, while Natalia is abducted. 

Claire's group fight through traps and monsters to get to the Overseer's base, and later find out that Neil Fisher is actually a mole from the now-defunct FBC (the antagonists in Revelations), and is the true mastermind of the kidnapping. He sold the TerraSave members to the Overseer, who identifies herself as Alex Wesker (sister of longtime franchise antagonist Albert Wesker). However, Alex Wesker betrays Neil, and injects him with a sample of the Uroboros virus, and his mutated form is put down by Moira. Alex, meanwhile, has placed Natalia and sent her via machinery into the depths of the facility, before giving a speech and abruptly committing suicide. As the base self-destructs, Moira helps Claire to escape but gets herself trapped by debris.

When Claire comes to, she wakes up and is questioned by Moira's father Barry Burton. Six months later, after desperately looking for clues, Barry goes off to the island alone, meeting the amnesiac Natalia Korda. While looking normal, Barry soon finds out that Natalia has a strange inhuman ability to detect B.O.W. locations, even invisible ones. Barry and Natalia journey through the island, eventually arriving on Alex Wesker's facility. They are stalked by Alex Wesker, who, naturally, survived her 'suicide' albeit in a mutated form. Alex mocks Barry, claiming to have killed Moira. As Barry and Natalia escape from Alex and her monsters, Barry reveals a bunch of backstory between him and Moira. Natalia herself has to struggle with the revelation that she is now suffering from split personality, as Alex has implanted part of her consciousness into Natalia's body. 

As they fight deeper into Alex's hideout, Alex mutates into a giant Uroboros monster while ranting about her obsession of becoming immortal. Barry ends up being assisted by Moira (who's not dead and has been hiding in the island) and Claire Redfield, who arrives as backup. Barry and Claire hold off the giant Alex Wesker mutation, until she's ultimately destroyed with a rocket launcher. The four of them head back to the mainland as BSAA troops arrive to purge the remaining B.O.W.'s on the island. 

The epilogue of the game sets up the plot of Resident Evil 6 as Chris Redfield prepares to go to China, while unknown to anyone, the consciousness of Alex Wesker starts to take over Natalia...

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Afflicted

This game's virus is the T-Phobos, yet another variant of the T-Virus that turns the humans into 'Afflicted'. Which... is basically zombies tossed through a layer of 2010's-era gore detail and some 'oh no, these guys got tortured terribly' gross-out imagery. A pretty neat model, but nothing too different from regular zombies if we're being super honest. T-Phobos is apparently a virus that causes mutations specifically, turning them zombie-like and violent towards any un-infected, after its hosts experiences extreme fear, so of course Alex Wesker has this massive prison where she tortures the inhabitants of Sejm Island. It's... it's honestly a bunch of more obvious horror movie tropes and zombie survival tropes that I don't feel gel particularly well with the rest of the franchise. Not so much that it feels wrong, but I did roll my eyes a couple of times when reading through the summary of the T-Phobos and the Afflicted. I dunno, maybe as a standalone game concept it'd be neat, but as part of a long-running franchise with so many different viruses and settings, this one felt a bit too try-hard for me. Maybe I'd feel better about it if I played through the story? I dunno. 

Apparently all the Afflicted were kept in total darkness because Alex Wesker is a sadist, which is why these Afflicted are vulnerable to light and can be stunned with your flashlight. Also, all the Afflicted are men, since apparently the T-Phobos kills female hosts? Which is somewhat relevant because most of our main characters (bar Barry) are women, but eh, unlike the Sea Creeper difference in the preivous Revelations game, all this earns from me is a shrug. Depending on who you ask in the internet, this is either a bizarre roundabout way of feminism or just the developers being lazy to create women-zombie models. 

Rotten

So the angry Ganados-style Afflicted turn out to be only halfway through the process of zombification, and afterwards they deteriorate into the Rotten, which are shambling, decomposed walking corpses. The model certainly looks gloriously wretched and nasty, looking more mummy-like than rabid... although they're basically just, well, zombies in a nastier state of decay. It's different enough from the traditional T or C virus zombies in the franchise, but, again, it's kind of mundane and honestly the Afflicted/Rotten combo feels so much less practical as a bioweapon than most of the other alphabet viruses we've seen in the franchise. 

Cyst

Less of an enemy and more of a hazard, the Cyst are just... well, giant cysts, massive chunks of flesh created by the T-Phobos. They explode if you get near them. These Cysts are found when certain Afflicted with tumours are shot, and a bunch of their tissue lumps fall onto the ground and is allowed to grow, at which point they rapidly grow into these Cysts. Not much to say here, it sure is a gross cyst and it sure is consistent with the Resident Evil aesthetic of tumorous fleshglobs... although after seeing the Globster from the previous game, this one is certainly more than a bit underwhelming. 

Sploder

These Sploders are at least a fair bit creepier! We've seen bloated explosive zombies in the franchise before, but this one is actually particularly nasty-looking. This is less of a fat person and one whose stomach has clearly mutated and grown into this mass of nasty bloated tumorous flesh. Even the dude's head has been reduced into nothing but a fungus-esque stump. These Sploders are apparently what happens when an Afflicted 'dies', so to speak, instead of turning into a Rotten, where the T-Phobos goes wild in trying to repair the damage into the body, and, well, turns the body into a barely-functioning giant exploding mass of volatile tissue with legs. Nothing that I feel is particularly fresh to the franchise, but that sure is a nasty looking model! 

Iron Head & Vulcanblubber

Yeah, I think one of my biggest problem with this game is that it feels like it's desperately trying to combine random tropes from different horror games or movies in an attempt to really go back to horror, and Iron Head here is clearly obviously a Pyramid Head wannabe from Silent Hill. One of the Silent Hill games even takes place in a prison, doesn't it? the metal helmets are kinda cool, I guess, and so is the stapled wound across the chest, but it feels so boring compared to similar enemies like the Executioner Majini from previous games. It fits the torture-dungeon prison aesthetic for sure, it's just an aesthetic that I don't find to be particularly interesting. 

The Vulcanblubber is also pretty bland, another generic 'look at all the blood splattered around this guy' enemy with a face that's all wrapped up in bandages and stuff. He's a fat man who uses a pot fileld with explosive things and is basically sort of a mobile artillery or something. Again, neither one of these are terrible designs, but they do feel like they belong in a different sort of horror game. 

Giant Whip Spider

I am thankful for obligatory monster type, though. The Giant Whip Spider is pretty simple, just a giant version of the real-life Amblypygia, but to someone who's never seen a Whip Spider before they look weirdly removed enough from regular spiders and scorpions to look extra unsettling. And... and whip spiders already look pretty unsettling, aren't they? Even though whip spiders are actually notoriously docile and timid. Pretty cool to see a more obscure animal make it into a video game, even if they don't necessarily do much with this one. 

Orthrus

Obligatory zombie dog time, this one named after the two-headed dog from Greek mythology, sibling of the three-headed Cerberus. The Orthrus is our obligatory zombie dog, and... yeah, this one feels extra Silent Hill-y with its haunting stretched eyeless skull-face that makes it look genuinely bizarre, like some mutant skull gas mask thing. It sure feels like its own brand of creepy instead of yet another rehashed zombie dog. That alone would make the Orthrus already creepy enough (even if the mass of knives stabbed onto its flesh is a bit too much), but look at that second screenshot to see where its real mouth is!

Yeah, the entire head is just the upper jaw, and the actual mouth is under where you'd think the Orthrus's 'neck' is, and it's shaped like a giant bear-trap, too. An utterly wacky design in all the right ways, and while there isn't admittedly a whole ton of competition in this game, the Orthrus is definitely my favourite from this one. 

Revenant

Thankfully, from the Orthus onwards at least none of the monsters look boring? The Revenant here looks a bit way too over-the-top, though, hopping off the 'disturbingly gory' train and straight up to 'ridiculously over-the-top', and not even in the funny way. It's just trying to be too hard to be oh-so-edgy, but... I dunno. It sure is horrifying, with the limbs being mismatched and sewn together like that, and the expression on this guy's face and two mouths does look pitiful and scary... but I dunno, the Revenants kind of go a bit over-the-top and it ends up becoming just a bit too ridiculous. I might like it a bit better if they maybe nixed one or two details from this thing. 

Like, okay, there's a bit of a theme of 'how afraid can you get' with Revelations 2 and T-Phobos, and this sure is a tortured and mutilated guy and that's terrifying in a basic sense, but... but that's honestly all about it. I do like that they move like puppets, but at the same time I can't honestly say that this is a design I prefer over a good 90% of the other monsters in this franchise.  

Slinger

Kind of neat, even if it does look like an attempt to reinvent G-Birkin. I actually like this one, the Slinger here is apparently created by Uroboros Virus instead of the T-Phobos, and while it's a pretty simple giant flesh-mutant monster, I do like that it's got random diving-suit viewing windoes or something welded onto its flesh. It looks pretty different from the 'mass of black tendril' Uroboros monsters, but I guess that the regular Uroboros parts are hidden within that swollen sacks of flesh, and the Slinger, well, slings these parasites that explode on impact. Neat. 

Splasher

Another one that sort of earns a shrug from me, although I do appreciate the amount of detail put into this one. That right arm is just a mutated mass of bones and skulls with some of them looking like they're screaming, and I appreciate the huge swollen right leg, that one random arm sprouting out and reaching towards the wrong direction, and the lump of mass on the lady's chin. Another one that's created similarly to the Revenant and moves around like dolls, and they use that giant bone arm to sling pus at you. Again... eh. I think this one might be the favourite out of the Revenant, Slinger and Splasher, but they're all kinda just trying too hard. 

Glasp

Oh, okay, this bug monster is actually pretty neat. After so many enemies that are just 'look at how gory we can get', the Glasp here... it's a weird giant flea monster with a pair of extra wings, and a face that looks positively nasty like some sort of hag, and a mass of hair. The Glasp's main face is a weird nasty Pac-Man mouth, but there's actually the remnants of a human face looking up. The Glasp, like RE4's Novistadores, are creepy flying bugs that also have the power to turn invisible with the aid of a gas. As this shot shows us, not only does it have the weird Pac-Man mouth, it's got a long, vertical mouth running down the bottom of its abdomen. Apparently that mouth is where it vomits out its tiny grub babies after it catches and kills you. 

I like the Glasp on principle because it's a creepy bug monster and it's more exciting than the torture chamber rejects, but it's also kind of whatever to me. 

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BOSSES:

Mutant Pedro

He's significant because he's a character, Pedro Fernandez, and someone Claire runs around with for a while before he gets killed... but he's just some zombie dude (well, 'Afflicted') who's mutated like a milder case of the G-virus, sprouting eyeballs and having his right hand swelling and merging with the hand drill he's holding. Honestly kind of underwhelming. 

Monster Neil

Neil Fisher is another character in the game that gets mutated, this time by the Uroboros Virus. He sure gets real jacked, particularly in the thighs, although there's not much to really say here. His arm is pretty consistent with Resident Evil 5's Uroboros mutants, and his left arm looks like a Rob Liefield artwork. He sure is a giant jacked-up mutant man.

Durga

Kind of more interesting? The Durga here is a fusion of the Uroboros Virus and a bunch of Revenant corpses, and borrows its name from a multi-armed goddess in Hindu mythology. We've seen these sort of 'monster that is a fusion of a mass of corpses' before; like Derek Simmons' fly form, or Nyx, or Javier Hidalgo... but for the most part they tend to take on a more recognizable form. Durga, as messy as it looks, actually does look like just a bunch of random corpses stacked on each other, with some recognizable limbs from a Splasher or a Revenant strewn here and there. And just look at that screenshot, you can more appreciate that there's like a half-dozen faces that are just stretched apart like someone trying to make a tapestry or something. 

Actually a pretty nasty-looking thing, and I like this significantly more than the Revenants and Splashers it's made up of, The Wiki compares this to a 'tree', and as you fight it the Durga's true Uroboros 'stem' will reveal itself. Not my favourite boss by a long shot, but a pretty cool and nasty visual that actually makes me go 'oh, that's actually creepy'. 

Alex Wesker

So yeah, Albert's got a sister. Alex Wesker, as most Resident Evil villains are wont to, gets two monster forms. Originally showing off as basically female Albert Wesker during the Claire campaign, after a botched suicide attempt and the T-Phobos activating within her, she gets turned into a weird old crone-like woman that stalks Barry during his campaign. There's a whole ton of storyline involving a play at immortality and taking over a little girl's body, but we're here to talk about monsters. Alex's first form is... it's actually pretty nastily scary, and in all the best ways possible. Usually these first forms either don't try to look too monstrous, or, at least, keeps a lot of the human parts intact, but Alex Wesker's first form looks pretty hideous. I'm not sure what part of it looks the most nasty. Those Uroboros tentacles coming out of her stomach like guts spilling out of a stomach wound? The mass of tumours on her chest? The emaciated limbs? I'm going to say that screaming, wretched face that's partially merged into her shoulders. 

Alex then mutates even further, and ends up sort of looking kind of like a monster from the Alien franchise or something, with how thin and glossy a lot of her body parts are. The stomach-tendrils are still there, albeit wrapped around what remains of her spine. It actually looks monstrous and not cool at all, and I actually approve of this final design a lot. Not too much to say here, but I'm actually kind of a big fan of Alex Wesker's monster forms. 

Raid Mode Giant Monsters

As part of the multiplayer part of the game are these 'giant monster' events, where players have to fight these kaiju-sized titan versions of regular enemies... some of which look significantly creepier when they are gigantic, particularly RE6's Rasklapanje or this game's Glasps, as shown here. The monsters that get blown up into giants are based on Ironheads, Huntesr, Afflicted, Mutant Pedro, Revenants, Scagdeads, Executioner Majini, Vulcanblubber, Rasklapanje, Rotten, Orthrus and Glasp. Needless to say, they're non-canon as far as most of Resident Evil goes, but it's neat to acknowledge them here.

Some of the names are pretty generic cool giant monster names (Drednought, Juggernaut, Chaos, Destruction, Ichor, Pulverizer, Defiler, Plague), but some draw theirs from Greek mythology (Medusa, Stheno, Euryale, Charon, Hydra, Aello, Ocypete), Norse (Surtr), Egyptian (Shezmu) or Lovecraft's works (Dagon, Innsmouth). Not much to say here, they sure look hauntingly huge.