Resident Evil: Death Island is The Avengers of the franchise.

 We've finally come to Death Island. This CGI-animated movie came out in 2023, two years after the incredibly disappointing Infinite Darkness and I must confess, following the rather non-enthusiastic reviews, I never got around to watching it. Until now... I will say that seeing five major characters of the franchise together on the screen is a major selling point for fans such as myself. So, an entire 3 years after Death Island's initial release, was it good? Kind of. Better than Infinite Darkness at least. 

Death Island opens up with an Umbrella Security Service team heading to Raccoon City during the initial outbreak. Amongst the team are good friends Dylan and JJ. Their orders are to evacuate politicians and Umbrella VIPs, no civilians whatsoever to the point that they have permission to open fire on any trying to get past them and escape. Things go awry as we flash forward to a point in time were the whole team minus Dylan and JJ have been bitten. Orders come in to at first quarantine the infected before inevitably they are told to put them all down. Dylan argues with JJ and the two get into a brief scuffle before JJ follows through with the kill order. Later, we see that JJ has been bitten and in a moment of hypocrisy, pleads with Dylan to not be shot like their team mates. After another scuffle, Dylan loses his mind and bludgeons JJ to death.

Flash forward to 2015 and Leon Kennedy is in San Francisco hunting down a robotics engineer by the name of Antonio Taylor. Hunnigan informs Leon that Taylor was selling US secrets before being kidnapped by terrorists. Whilst following the van that was holding Taylor, Leon is ambushed by a motorcyclist who turns out to be Maria Gomez. Maria Gomez was in Vendetta, working with Glen Arias and as such, she is out for revenge following the death of her father. 

Next up, we transition to a beach were Claire Redfield, working with TerraSave finds an orca that had washed ashore and was somehow infected with the T-virus. When we next see her, she calls in both her older brother, Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine and scientist Rebecca Chambers. Speaking of Jill, we see her taking out a zombie in a house in some unknown location. She is dealing with the mental trauma stemming from the events of Resident Evil 5 in which, she was mind controlled by Albert Wesker and made to attack Chris.

Somehow, the new and improved version of the T-virus causes an outbreak in San Francisco and the origin point of the infection is apparently Alcatraz, the legendary prison island. Naturally this leads to our main characters all converging on the island to investigate. Maria Gomez and Dylan both lay in wait... 

Okay, so right off the bat it is incredibly obvious that all of the CGI animations feature a pretty basic plot revolving around a person who was perhaps 'wronged' in some respect and then hatching ludicrous revenge schemes. From Degeneration with Curtis Miller all the way to this very movie with both Dylan Blake and of course, Maria Gomez. I do hope that Capcom can switch thing sup with whatever animated project they embark on after this. 

On a positive note, the CGI is rather excellent. The animation is smooth, even with the more complex motions and action. The details on the characters and environments are superb. 

The action itself is not quite Vendetta or Damnation level, but is still pretty solid. Whilst it is lacking the martial arts flair and prowess of Kensuke Sonomura, there is still some rather entertaining sequences, one highlight being a one on once showdown that wraps up the loose thread from Vendetta quite nicely. With the improved virus, these new zombies are rather agile and lead to some fun moments of action with parkour-like movements increasing the explosiveness of the action and crank the tension up a fair bit. Another standout section involves Jill, Leon and some rather cranky lickers in a sewer. The tension there is palpable as things slow down until the rather dramatic ending. There is naturally a fight against a large mutated bio-weapon which involves all of the main characters having to use a plethora of the armoury's arsenal to put down. It gets quite ridiculous, but in a fun way. Seriously, there's the usage of a plasma rifle that resembles a railgun such as the one Jill used against the Nemesis and what can only be described as a super rocket launcher that requires two people to use. The slow-motion dodging sequence is also fun dumb. 

Dylan Blake is an interesting antagonist. His backstory is rather tragic and actually pretty intriguing with Umbrella being rather callous in issuing the orders to kill the infected members of his team. On top of that, he had to kill his own best friend, JJ. Naturally, this tragedy would mess any person up. Unfortunately, when it comes to his actual revenge plot, it falls rather flat and he becomes a rather generic villain. His entire speech just makes him seem really stupid and even our main characters call him out for it. If he wanted revenge, he has the resources, especially the drones, to go after the remnants of Umbrella and anyone connected to them. His speech is just plain wrong as our protagonists do save innocents. Still, it was cool to see some Umbrella personal other than Carlos Olivera and Mikhail Viktor be humanised. 

Leon Kennedy is once again a highlight, as he so often is. He gets a good amount of screen time, including finishing some unfinished business that had been started in a previous movie. His quips are so much fun and I enjoy them a lot. Even staring death in the face, his wit shines through. 

Chris Redfield gets some time to shine, even mentioning his very own trauma in losing team mates too often. He has become quite protective of Jill in his own way which is quite understandable given what they've both gone through. It's nice to see him and Claire on-screen together too, as it doesn't happen often with Code Veronica being the last time that it has happened. 

Claire Redfield also has some badass moments as she tries to defend some tourists from the outbreak within Alcatraz and also caring more about a dying man who has been shot more than herself. 

Rebecca Chambers doesn't have a whole lot of screen time, but she does come in clutch twice. Her scientific expertise comes in handy as she develops a vaccine to the improved virus and also plays a vital role in tackling a massive bio-weapon. 

Jill Valentine. There are some issues with Jill in Death Island. The most minor of which is the fact that for some reason, she has her Resident Evil 3 Remake design despite the fact that Death Island takes place after Resident Evil 5. She should canonically be blonde at this point in time following being brainwashed by Albert Wesker. Her characterisation is also not great with her being a complete bitch to Chris when the latter gives genuinely rational, valid advice. She just brushes him off even when he brings up losing Piers from Resident Evil 6 and that's not something one does to someone close to them. She does improve as the movie progresses, but that scene really pissed me off. Another flaw of the writing is the fact that she has her gun trained on Dylan for his entire villainous monologue when she could just shoot him at any point in time.

Overall, Death Island is a dumb revenge plot movie that is also incredibly fun. It's cheesy, but not in a bad way. As I wrote in the opening paragraph, one of the biggest selling points is the 5 major characters sharing the screen for the very first time. It is better than Infinite Darkness, so I easily recommend it above that, whilst it is also not quite on the level of Damnation or Vendetta. Recommend trying to do a double-feature with Vendetta as it is a sequel of sorts to that movie.