Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness is weaker than its predecessors.

 

After re-watching and greatly enjoying the first trio of CGI-animated movies of the Resident Evil franchise in a celebration of its 30th anniversary, it is time to re-visit Infinite Darkness. Unlike Degeneration, Damnation and Vendetta, Infinite Darkness was released as a four part mini-series back in 2021. Okay, let's be honest here... It's a movie that was separated into four parts for reasons that are beyond me. It was also released on Netflix, the same platform that gave us the abomination that was the 2022 live-action series which was Resident Evil in name only. Despite starring both Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield much like Degeneration did, Infinite Darkness was unfortunately markedly worse. 

Set after the events of Resident Evil 5, but prior to Resident Evil 6, Infinite Darkness sees two stories play out whilst becoming intertwined at various intersections. Leon is called into the White House by Ashley Graham's father, the President of the United States, to help investigate a classified incident that occurred in the year 2000. Upon arriving, he meets special agents Jason, Patrick and Shenmei, his new team. Jason and Shenmei are both survivors of the incident being investigated and we learn more about as the series progresses. Unfortunately, there's no time for pleasantries as a BOW outbreak occurs within the White House and a mole steals some top-secret information. Meanwhile, Claire Redfield still working for Terrasave, investigates the same incident whilst helping the people of Panamstan, the country in which it took place. 

Okay, so the story isn't exactly the most thrilling, but it had a certain promise. The idea of Panamstan and the conflict there could have been the foundations of something great with ideas likening it to the real-world conflicts in Iraq and more specifically, Afghanistan. Having a character with PTSD from having personally fought in such a war could have been excellent, but the motivations behind the character in Infinite Darkness throw all of that potential away. I also didn't particularly care for the fact that the monster still had the sentience to form full sentences. It doesn't feel right and it ain't like it's Wesker. 

I also feel like the fact that it was chopped up into four separate episodes hurt the project more than it helped. With the four episodes being less than 30 minutes long, the pacing was rough. Each episode had to have a beginning, middle and end that made some sort of sense and the first three happened to have cliff-hanger endings to head into the next. It is detrimental to the story-telling and the pacing.

There's also some rather strange moments, especially egregiously in the very last episode where time and space is rather weird... One moment a character is plummeting towards a perilous, climbing sea of acid, the next they're hanging onto a railing with a cut in the middle to a different character that makes the sequence of events rather jarring and just bizarre. I guess I can forgive the last time that this happens, which is again someone plummeting towards certain doom before a cut to a different character. The difference is how the character is presented, with them giving a final, weak speech before their inevitable demise. 

Jason was an interesting addition to the franchise. His backstory is rather good stuff. I greatly enjoy the idea of ex-soldiers that have seen the worst combat imaginable who somehow survive, but are impacted very negatively with PTSD. They make for interesting characters that can be fun to watch. Jason himself however, was a missed opportunity and squandered potential. He could have been so much more than he ultimately amounted to and that's a tragedy. 

Shenmei was a cool character. She had very believable motivations for the actions she takes and I see her not as a villain, but as an anti-hero of sorts. She had good intentions, but went down the wrong path to go about them. She also is humorously referred to as Temu Ada Wong by the fans of the franchise. This does make sense when you think about it. She's also another reason why Leon has canonically got yellow fever as he flirts with her. Second canon Asian female that he's shown interest in. 

On a positive note, Leon Kennedy was handled incredibly well within Infinite Darkness. He's not the drunkard, pissed off agent he was in Vendetta and that's a good thing. He has some fun one-liners, some kick-ass action and makes a morally complex and ambiguous decision for what he thinks is the greater good. That same decision puts him in direct conflict with Claire Redfield. Claire was handled okay enough, her best parts were her investigations on her own within the first half of the series. 

Overall, Infinite Darkness is a very flawed mini-series that is much worse than any of the previous offerings in the CGI-animated selection. I would rank it dead last in a tier list. Having stated that, I would still place it above the live-action offerings as at least for all its faults, it is not an affront to nature nor offensive to the franchise. I would still recommend that you give it a watch and see if it's for you.