Waffling Taylors Goes To The Movies

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Featured Image

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Players

Squidge

Jay

Delilah

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Content Warning

As this is an episode about a biopunk action horror movie and the games that it’s based on we’d advise a little caution for this episode. There’s nothing explicitly terrible in this episode, but the subject matter can be pretty rough.

This episode has a few swears in it, but none which should be too offensive.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

Squidge started the episode in his own, fantastic way:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

From active time battling to zombie slaying, waffling Taylors covers video games and beyond.

In this episode, we cover the 2008 CGI video game movie Resident Evil: Degeneration. We chat about all manner of topics, including everything from snooty british accents to the zombie wrestling week

So without further ado, sit back, grab some snacks, and get ready for this episode entitled "Resident Evil Degeneration - Death In The Departure Lounge". Oh my.

Enjoy.

Initial Thoughts

Whilst it got a (very) limited theatrical release, both Jay and Squidge first saw this on Blue-Ray DVDs—remember when Blu-Ray movies where a new thing?

Jay brought up some points about how this was Capcom’s attempts to regain control from the … big-ball-of-mud (shall we say) that is the Paul W. S. Anderson Resident Evil movies. But as he said in Resident Evil and the Paper Kimono:

Jay's Avatar Jay:

It’s fun if you’re able to, like, take all of the ideas of it being a "Resident Evil" movie out and just enjoy it. For a zombie action horror movie, it’s actually lots of fun.

And whilst a lot of people initially reacted to the lack of horror aspects in this movie, Jay said that it’s worth pointing out that this game came out between Resident Evil 4 and 5; putting it smack dab in the middle of the over-the-shoulder action-oriented phase of the games. And during this monologue (of sorts), Jay brought up the idea of revisiting “Resident Evil: Welcome To Racoon City” for the podcast because:

Jay's Avatar Jay:

I think we’re gonna have to cover [Resident Evil: Welcome To Racoon City]. And, like, the reaction.

Because I feel like, I feel like it’s been long enough now that the people who initially reacted when it first came out was like, "No, Leon’s stupid in this movie." And "oh, oh, they used the Jill sandwich line too early," and all that kind of stuff. I’m talking about welcome to Raccoon City right there; [and the] detractors from that movie.

I think now that it’s been a few years and now that it’s no longer cool to [poop] on that movie, they’re all going to be like, "nah, nah. I loved it when it first came out."

The article that he mentioned can be found here, and an article which is more about gamers reactions to videogame movies can be found here. Both are worth a read.

But heading back to the movie in question, both Jay and Squidge had a ton of fun watching this movie.

Jay's Avatar Jay:

Someone was asking me the other day, "so what’s this movie like then?"

And I said, "imagine Die Hard 2 meets Snakes On A Plane, meets Day Of The Dead and you’ve got it." That’s essentially the movie.

The Scenes We Want To Highlight

These episodes rarely include a play-by-play of the movie (except for the first few of them), instead both Jay and Squidge wanted to pick out some of their favourite scenes. And Squidge went first

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

The scene that I like is when the helicopter in Leon’s like, "right, we’ll take this off little bit at a time." Giga-chad Greg just runs off. He couldn’t give a flying [flubbin’], right? He’s like, "oh, I can do this," right? Angela does the same. So Leon’s doing his thing. He’s wandering through. He’s a veteran at this point. He knows to shoot him in the head. The line hasn’t been said to shoot him in the head yet, but the scene that I like is when the actual "infected zombies" actually get introduced.

So Angela wanders in. She sees the carnage. She sees people all over the place, but she sees someone who’s down. So she tries to pick them up, put them over the shoulders, try and get them out, starts biting at him. Leon shoots them. Next thing you know, they all start standing up. Leon tries to drag Angela back. Giga-chad Greg runs in, starts shooting everyone. Leon makes a point after the chest, the, the obligatory chest beating over. He goes, whoa. And then just sort of goes towards him. You know, like them, like a football, american football celebration type thing, but in your face. Next thing you know, he hears a sound. One of them flies through the window. He’s trying to bite him. And then you get this really, really cool camera angle of a zombie trying to bite him. And it’s from Giga-chad, Greg’s point of view. And you see the zombie trying to bite at you.

It really threw me first time I watched it, I was waiting to see that again because it’s a really cool camera angle.

…

I know this is a couple of scenes later, but I’ve put it all into one thing. After hearing the gunshots in the executive lounge, Claire says, "we’ve got to go out there. Has anyone got a weapon?" And next thing you know, the door’s being locked. And you turn around and she pulls up the Umbrella umbrella. It’s like, yeah, I can’t even remember the line. She says something along the lines of, "didn’t expect these to come in.&quotl And I thought, "oh, that’s just amazing."

And then when a zombie goes through it, you just hear, "get down!" She ducks. Leon shoots the zombie, she turns around. It’s just a massive, nod to the original game. It’s just, oh, yep. It’s amazing. Love it. Yep. Recreates how they met in present evil two. I was there for that. I loved it.

And Jay’s first scene was slightly after that:

Jay's Avatar Jay:

My first scene starts, I think just slightly after that. Like that whole bit where they have to work their way across the airport after it’s out in the open. It’s all gone wobbly, and they’re like, "what are we gonna do? Just walk across there?" And Leon goes, "yep." He doesn’t say that, but, like, that’s essentially what he says. He’s like, "yep. We got a clear line of fire, and we’re just gonna walk through. It’ll be fine. Just keep moving. It’s fine. This is what I do," right?

And I liked the difference between Leon in Resident Evil 2 and Leon where he is here. Right. Obviously, there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on, right. Like you said. We’re post Resident Evil 4. So he is properly trained in what he does, and he knows exactly how to handle himself. Which is why he becomes sort of action here or generic-action-hero-number-seven or whatever.

…

I want to call out the ridiculously stupid, over the top action movie sequence where [Rani] falls down the side of the airplane. Claire jumps down to go get her, and Leon goes, "Claire!" And throws his pistol at her. And, like, slow motion is something that I can’t even come up with a joke for. How stupid the stupidly over the top the slow motion is, right?

She isn’t even looking. She spins and kicks some kind of some, some infected person, some zombie, and carries on turning without looking, sticks a hand out, catches the gun. Like this is something that John Woo would have been happy with creating, right? He. Then she then gets that and then spins and starts going bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. It was ridiculously stupid, and I absolutely flubbin’ love it.

Squidge’s second highlighted scene was towards the end of the movie:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

So this is after Claire and Leon have got out. This is after Leon and Angela go searching for places. Clay’s in the [WP]* headquarters. This is after they’ve locked down the airport lounge with two guys—the tag team, you know, Hank, a short war veteran with a [flubbin’] massive lock. He just locked the door. And they’re not gonna let Joey in to clear out the terminal because they still don’t know if there’s any survivors. He’s just got a massive [flubbin’] flamethrower. He just wants to incinerate the law. Something about, you know, stock prices and, you know, too much damage. And the cat set an airport on fire.

So after all that happened, and they’ve gone to this massive dome thing, which is set out like an umbrella. You know, the symbolism is there. The bit I’ve got is right at the end, and I’m talking, like, the last ten minutes where you get to see Curtis after he’s already injected himself with the G virus… It’s essentially the whole ending bit. So you’ve got Angelo, who gets dragged back. You’ve got the, the soldiers who try and take him down but fail miserably. But then both parts of the ending fight, it’s not what you’d expect from, like, the Paul W.S Anderson verse of Resident Evil. There’s no massive, like, fistfight or there’s guns going or someone picks up a real gun at the end bit or, you know, a thing falls on them or, you know, there’s bits and bobs.

It’s just Leon and Angela trying to escape, knowing that the can’t fight back. They literally, I think, like two grenade rounds and four bullets from Leon are shot. That’s it.

To me, I think if there would have been a massive, climactic ending where Leon gets a ton of one liners and there’s bullets being shot and he’s doing this, that and the other, it would have gone too ham, too cheesy. It would have gone full on. Then it would have lost me…. The building is fighting characters for them. Dropping things, incinerating things. You know, that’s happening. That’s all happening.

One thing I did like, I really did like was the fact that I think angel is just about to get slashed by him. And Leon throws his knife to the massive eye on the shoulder. And it’s like, that’s the weak spot. And it’s actually the weak spot. And he reels backwards. I definitely pop for that. I was like, "it does work. That is a weak spot. I knew it. I knew it."

…

You know, and it’s just survival instinct that wins the day. It’s not badass trickery. I mean, yeah, Leon does end up dangling upside down, hanging onto Angela, and then BOW is hanging onto her leg, which means his legs are stronger than Chris Redfield’s arms in Resident Evil 5 because he’s dangling on one leg, you know, but shaky fist logic.

* WP has been used throughout the notes for this episode due to some potential controversy brought up by a REAL pharmaceutical named “Will Pharma”. To quote the Resident Evil Fandom page:

A real healthcare company called Will Pharma (willpharma.com) objected to its association to the fictional WilPharma company that is named in the Resident Evil franchise. In response to a complaint from Will Pharma, Capcom agreed to remove references to WilPharma.

Interestingly, this was one of Jay’s favourite scenes, too.

How Would We Rate It?

We don’t usually rate games or movies, in fact we have never done that. And this was a conscious decision that we made early in the life of the site.

But we needed to figure out a way to tell you all whether we think you should watch this movie or not. Normally we would rely on three ratings across three categories, which are:

  • Love it (best)
  • Try it
  • Fling it into a tree (worst)

Across these categories:

  • As a video game movie
  • As a zombie shooty action flick
  • As a Resident Evil movie in the Resident Evil canon
Squidge’s Ratings
CategoryRating
As a video game movieLove it
As a zombie shooty action flickTry it
As a Resident Evil movie in the Resident Evil canon(mid tier) Love it
Jay’s Ratings
CategoryRating
As a video game movieLove it
As a zombie shooty action flickTry it
As a Resident Evil movie in the Resident Evil canonTry it / Love it

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

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Games Covered

We mentioned 14 games in this podcast. In the following order, those games where: