Year:  2023

Director:  Yasuhiro Anpo, Kazunori Kadoi

Rated:  R

Release:  Out Now

Distributor: Capcom

Running time: 12-15 hour campaign

Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth

Intro:
… a stellar remake that will delight fans of the original.

The world was not ready for Resident Evil 4 when it first came out in 2005. The latest entry in the wildly popular (albeit slightly creaky) RE franchise, the fourth game added quality of life changes, a persistent over-the-shoulder third person camera and fresh gameplay wrinkles aplenty. Instead of shooting the same shambling undead, you were now being attacked by gibbering villagers armed with melee weapons and a bag-headed wanker with a chainsaw!

It’s hard to overstate how insane it felt the first time you barricaded yourself in one of the huts, only to have villagers start to smash through windows, climb onto the roof or break through doors. Such mechanics are relatively common these days, but at the time? Holy crap, it felt like you were playing an intense horror movie from the comfort of your couch, some kind of bizarre hybrid of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and John Carpenter’s The Thing.

Truly a genre fan’s nirvana!

The game was a massive hit and remains a series favourite to this day, so it was pretty much inevitable that a remake was going to occur. Said remake is now here and the result is solid, if perhaps not quite as revolutionary as the superb RE2 reinvigoration from 2019.

Resident Evil 4 puts players back in the role of floppy-haired STARS agent, Leon S. Kennedy. Ol’ mate has mostly recovered from the events of Resident Evil 2 and is back in the field with a new job. In this case, saving the President’s daughter, Ashley, from a Spanish village controlled by the deranged cult of Los Iluminados.

RE4’s story is less a consistently escalating narrative and more a rambunctious rollercoaster ride through various genres and horror tropes. Whereas previous RE titles excelled at making you feel underpowered and overwhelmed, RE4 adds a heaping helping of action, giving Leon a roundhouse kick that clobbers enemies with the power of a dozen Jean-Claude Van Dammes. This leads to a game that is significantly less scary but much more propulsive and edge-of-your-seat, which is especially true in 2023, now that Leon has been given a parry button where he can use his knife a limited number of times to knock back enemy blows.

The end result is a game that feels like an action movie with stellar horror set pieces. Genre purists may balk at this (and, subjectively, your humble word janitor prefers the RE2 remake, just quietly) but there’s no denying how damn fun and engaging the adventure is, even if you’re occasionally rolling your eyes at the hokey dialogue and goofy plot twists.

Ultimately, Resident Evil 4 was a genre-defining entry in a revered series and has been given a stellar remake that will delight fans of the original. It’s not quite as revelatory as the RE2 remake, but a significant improvement over the RE3 one, and a game that continues to prove that sometimes a horror classic franchise can be improved with a good dose of kicking.

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