Resident Evil: Vendetta is the third full-length CGI film for the Resident Evil franchise, following 2008's Degeneration and 2012's Damnation. Unlike the live-action films, Vendetta is firmly set within the games' continuity, serving as a bridge between Resident Evil 6 and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
BSAA member Chris Redfield enlists the help of government agent Leon S. Kennedy and Professor Rebecca Chambers from the Alexander Institute of Biotechnology to try to stop Glenn Arias, a death merchant who is on a mission of vengeance from spreading a new deadly virus known as "A-Virus" in New York City.
It has a novel adaptation of the same name.
The film was released in Japan on May 27, 2017 and in Summer 2017 in North America. The first trailer can be viewed here
and the second here.
It's followed by Resident Evil: Death Island, which was released in 2023.
Resident Evil: Vendetta provides examples of the following tropes:
- Actionized Sequel: More like actionized prequel, since Resident Evil 7 went back to the franchise's survival horror roots while this film is sticking to the action-packed style the previous games and CG movies have had.
- Adaptational Explanation: While the movie itself never really goes into why Leon's team were killed in an ambush by a car bombing besides the fact that Patricio sold them out, the novelization of the film goes a little more into it. There, it was stated that the DSO was investigating people that had ties to The Family from Resident Evil 6 while Leon and his team were looking into Maryland Senator Steven Eyre due to having a connection with them. Before their carefully planned ambush attempt was carried out however, Patricio was contacted by The Family and sold out information on the ambush with the team being car bombed because of this.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: Arias apparently intends for Rebecca to replace his dead wife (in part, so to speak). This is the point at which the full scope of Arias's Sanity Slippage becomes apparent.
- An Arm and a Leg:
- The only remains that Arias could find of his wife after their wedding was bombed was her disembodied arm with her wedding ring still on her finger.
- The poor hotel bartender is literally shot to pieces by Diego's minigun, with a stray bullet ripping off one of her arms.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Leon and Chris, during their skirmish with zombies in Arias' New York hideout.
- Badass Biker: Leon, alongside his previous badass credentials is revealed to be one. Evading zombie dogs on a speeding highway while actively shooting at them and traversing indoor environments with ease:[Chris and Leon looks over a Humvee and a speed bike]
Leon: Dibs on the bike. - Badass Crew: Chris, Leon, and Rebecca Chambers join forces to fight back terrorism.
- Bayonet Ya: Chris makes good use of a bayonet attached to his rifle against the zombies - at one point reloading his rifle while said bayonet is stuck in a zombie.
- Big Applesauce: The climax of the movie is set in New York.
- Big "NO!": Twice within the first four and a half minutes of the movie starting, courtesy of Chris, and then Glenn Arias.
- Bittersweet Ending: Arias is killed for good, and the true vaccine for the A-Virus is spread all over New York curing those not too far gone from infection, but thousands of people are still dead from the devastating bio-terror attack. Also, bio-weapons are still on the market, with Maria still alive.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The action is much more violent, intense, and brutal compared to Degeneration and Damnation.
- Bottomless Magazines:
- Downplayed in the movie, as both Chris and Leon are shown constantly reloading their firearms, but they're still firing off a lot more shots than their weapons' magazines should logically hold.
- Leon carries his Sentinel Nine handgun with an extended magazine, so he's able to fire a lot of shots before reloading.
- The Brute: Diego serves as this for Arias.
- The Bus Came Back: Rebecca Chambers makes her first canonical reappearance in the franchise's modern timeline since Resident Evil note . And packing a doctorate, to boot.
- Call-Back:
- The scene near the end with Leon, Chris and Rebecca flying in the back of a helicopter as the sun comes up is strongly reminiscent of the good endings to the original Resident Evil. Rebecca even Lampshades it.
- The scene where D.C. and Nadia pull a gunship rescue of Leon (and less directly Chris and Rebecca) is a mix of Mike's rescue of Leon in RE4* and the last fight with Wesker in RE5* .
- Leon responds to losing an entire squad almost the exact same way Chris did in RE6: holing up in a bar and drinking, and grumpily blowing off the person who tries to draw him back into the fight before grudgingly agreeing.
- The elite BSAA unit, "Silver Dagger" could be a reference to the daggers that Chris and Jill can use in the REmake.
- Conveniently Empty Roads: Zig-Zagged. The streets of NYC are largely clear of traffic, but when Leon is chased by two Cerberus dogs, he takes them onto the freeway, where they encounter more realistic amounts of traffic.
- Cycle of Revenge: One of the themes of the movie. Arias is motivated by revenge when the U.S. government drone strikes his wedding, killing his wife and family. Chris is almost consumed by revenge once more when the raid in Mexico goes wrong and his team once again gets wiped out. In The Stinger, an injured Maria looks over the fallen facemask of her father Diego, and gives a look that pretty much tells the viewer what she's thinking of.
- Damsel in Distress: Rebecca ends up kidnapped by Arias and his henchman halfway through the plot, they even tie her up in a white wedding dress.
- Destructive Savior: In the course of trying to avert a biohazard in New York, our heroes blow up several tankers* in the street, cause a series of major collisions during a chase on the freeway, and fire a gun that blows through four buildings and partially collapses two of them with one shot. However, since they manage to secure and spread a vaccine that turns back the infection and makes the usual Nuke 'em response to a biohazard unnecessary, it's highly unlikely that they would be blamed.
- Disney Villain Death: Subverted. Chris's fight against Arias ends with the latter falling down an elevator shaft, complete with noticeable blood splatter when he reaches the bottom. But then his bodyguard Diego arrives at the scene, and the two merge into one giant mutation who climbs back up for one last go against the heroes.
- Disposable Pilot: In true Resident Evil tradition, Mauve Shirt heroes D.C. and Nadia perform a Gunship Rescue to save Leon from a BOW only to draw its attention and get leaped upon, with Nadia getting impaled in the process. Then Leon returns the favor by launching his bike at it and blowing it up, Chris follows through with an explosive round, and the helicopter and both people on it actually manage to survive the conflagration, subverting the trope.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: There is a terrorist attack in New York City in a game world influenced by the War on Terror.
- Elites Are More Glamorous:
- The BSAA Silver Dagger Unit.
- In the prologue, the Fuerza Especial de Reacción unit.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Glen Arias may be a ruthless arms dealer, but he truly loved his fiancée.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: As two unfortunate motorists learn when they crash on each other during the freeway chase between Leon and two Cerberus BOWs.
- Faceless Mooks: Arias employs steel-faceplated mercenaries as his henchmen. Not that they do particularly well against the battle-hardened protagonists.
- Fanservice: Downplayed. Rebecca spends the latter portion of the film barefoot in a wedding dress, with her wrists bound behind her back.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Chris does this to a depressed and drunken Leon, refusing to let him drink anymore and telling him to "cut the shit".
- Go-Go Enslavement: Once she is captured, Arias puts Rebecca in a (somewhat revealing) wedding dress.
- Gun Fu: Leon, again pulls off moves with a handgun that would make John Wick proud. Chris is no slouch either, combining this trope with Bayonet Ya and the occasional Unorthodox Reload. Even Arias gets in on the action too.
- Gun Kata: The rooftop battle between Chris and Arias is the short-range version.
- Gunship Rescue: Twice, one during the prologue when Chris is surrounded by the infected mansion residents, and another during the finale.
- Hand Cannon: As a nod to the usage of Magnums in the games, Leon switches from his Sentinel Nine 9mm to a Desert Eagle .50AE when fighting the mutated Arias.
- Heroic Ambidexterity: Chris is seen wielding his rifle and pistol both right- and left-handed.
- Identical Stranger: Rebecca ends up being this to Arias's dead wife Sara, so much so that he thinks it's fate and intends to recreate his wedding with her.
- The Lost Lenore: Glenn Aries is obsessed with the tragic death of his bride.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Two poor Mexican special forces operators get completely eviscerated when they try to run through a hallway laid with razor sharp wire.
- Market-Based Title: In parts of Asia (including Japan), it's known as Biohazard: Vendetta. In keeping with the way the franchise was originally called Biohazard in Japan, and changed to Resident Evil in the West (at least until Resident Evil 7: Biohazard effectively merged the two).
- Mythology Gag:
- Chris is once again part of a team sent to investigate an abandoned mansion.
- His team also gets wiped out in an ambush, leaving him as the sole survivor.
- Sections of the mansion itself look almost exactly like the Spencer mansion from the original game. The Entrance Hall and divided staircases with a large picture in the middle especially so.
- The zombified lab assistant of Rebecca turns his head slowly to look at her after consuming a corpse, just like the first zombie encountered in the Resident Evil.
- Several characters make mentions to the Los Illuminados incident.
- Chris is armed with a 93R pistol, which he could previously wield in both Code: Veronica and RE5.
- Rebecca wears an outfit very similar to her classic medic uniform after she goes with Silver Dagger to look for Leon.
- The razor hallway that slices the soldiers is very evocative of the laser hallway that does the same in Resident Evil (2002) (which also got a nod in Resident Evil 4).
- When Leon, Rebecca and Chris ride a BSAA-manned Osprey to disperse the A-Virus cure in downtown New York, it's similar to the ending of Resident Evil 1 when Rebecca remembers the time that she fled the Spencer estate with Chris, Jill and Barry.
- Chris is once again part of a team sent to investigate an abandoned mansion.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Even when they're butting heads, Chris and Leon are very similar, as Rebecca rightly points out. Chris argues with Leon for doing the exact thing in the aftermath of his squad being killed that he did in RE6, drinking and refusing to get drawn back into the fight; their interactions are even similar to Chris's argument with Piers, except Leon is a bit more morose and less belligerent when he's drunk. Rebecca also very pointedly points out that they're both not the kind of person to simply sit back and let someone destroy the world.
- Playing with Syringes: Comes with creating a new virus and then a vaccine for it. Ironically, Arias's Virus was largely spread by being airborne or in drinking water, the only time a syringe was used was when he had Rebecca injected with an improved version that was too toxic to be used any other way.
- Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: In their conversations, Arias is polite and courteous while Chris frequently insults him. Leon is also depicted as a bitter and sarcastic alcoholic in this movie.
- Power Limiter: Diego's mutation is held back by several metal parts that are crafted onto his body. He removes them near the end of the film to provide a requisite climactic battle against a giant monster.
- Product Placement: Leon's Ducati during the third act in New York.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Final scene of the film shows that Maria Gomez is still alive, but now with red eyes.
- Redshirt Army: The Mexican special forces who went in the mansion with Chris at the beginning get completely wiped out by Arius' B.O.Ws and various traps.
- Saved by Canon: By virtue of his appearance in Resident Evil 7, Chris will survive the movie.
- The same goes for Leon and Rebecca who appeared in Resident Evil: Death Island.
- Sequel Hook: While two of the main villains of the film are killed, Maria Gomez is shown to still be alive as she looks at her father's corpse and swears revenge against Chris, Rebecca and Leon for his death. This ends up leading into the sequel film Resident Evil: Death Island.
- Shout-Out:
- Chris' B.S.A.A. buddies are huge fans of Breaking Bad.Nadia: It's a goddamn masterpiece!
- The villain is a wanted Arms Dealer who survived a drone strike that killed his friends and family during a wedding and vowed revenge on the government. Sounds like Aamir Barkawi has someone who can share the same pain as him.
- Chris' B.S.A.A. buddies are huge fans of Breaking Bad.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: Rebecca ends up as this at the hands of Arias so he can inject her with an improved version of the A-Virus.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Chris takes a 3 round burst to the back from his own Beretta 93R 9mm handgun at near point-blank range. His body armor takes the brunt of the impact, but he's effectively out of commission for the rest of the scene and presumably requires some time to recover afterwards.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Leon shoots a Cerberus in the head, drops a giant sign on top of it, then throws a grenade on the remains.
- Took a Level in Badass: The Cerberus B.O.W.s are significantly stronger and faster here than they've ever been depicted before, able to snatch a man's head off in mid-leap and keep up with Leon on a speeding motorbike.
- Wedding Smashers: Glenn Arias's wedding was bombed by some unknown government organization in an attempt to wipe him out sometime in the past. As Rebecca is forced into Arias's recreation, the role shifts to Chris and Leon to save her.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Rebecca dishes this out to Chris and Leon: Chris for having an obsessive grudge towards Arias, and Leon for his alcoholism and broken spirit towards fighting B.O.W.s.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Chris Redfield bodyslams one zombie, and plants another into the ground head-first with a DDT, following up from some of his moves in past games.
- Unorthodox Reload: At one point after Chris bayonets a few zombies, he starts reloading his rifle while it's stuck in one by the bayonet. Another zombie grabs at him so Chris abandons reloading for a moment to pick up and body slam this zombie into the ground, after which he returns to the zombie that has his rifle embedded in its torso to pull the rifle out and strike through the head by swinging the bayonet downward and then finishes up reloading his rifle.
- You Don't Look Like You: Despite looks aging in Resident Evil 7 proper and the movie itself taking place after Resident Evil 6, Chris somehow looks younger in this movie.
- Zombie Apocalypse: The three main characters are working to prevent this from happening in New York.
