Resident Evil review
Zach Cregger delivers a brisk and thrilling ride through a Raccoon City outbreak.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Resident Evil
Directed by Zach Cregger
Written by Zach Cregger and Shay Hatten
Starring Austin Abrahams
Resident Evil Review
It’s difficult to approach a review of Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil without discussing the giant whining elephant in the room. So called Resident Evil “fans” have made the discourse surrounding this movie’s release unbearable…even though they hadn’t seen it yet. Despite worshiping a game franchise that has seen not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, but SEVEN previous live action film adaptations…this eighth one was a bridge too far for their sanity. Sure, the previous SEVEN films top out at “eh…that one isn’t that bad” but that’s beside the point. We want a faithful adaptation of games we’ve already played!
I can’t help but begin this review by addressing these people directly. You don’t know what you want. You think you do…but you don’t. Because insufferable children…which is the kindest way to refer to entitled fanbases that ruin everything they claim to cherish for everyone else…never know what they actually want. Earlier this year the movie Return to Silent Hill came out. It was, in essence, the very thing these “fans” wanted their own game adaptation to be. It looked like cutscenes you’ve already seen if you played Silent Hill 2. And it was AWFUL. So would the version of Resident Evil these “fans” think they deserve. Actually…they’re right about that. It would be the version of Resident Evil they deserve. I’m going to direct the rest of this at people who enjoy good movies. Because Zach Cregger has delivered the version the rest of us deserve. And the angry children cannot stand it.
The headline here should be “someone finally made a good Resident Evil movie”. So, let’s run with that and not look back. The premise is simple…you don’t need previous knowledge of either the video games or other movies to jump right in. A man (Austin Abrahams) is tasked with carrying what he believes is an organ transplant to Raccoon City as a virus unknowingly wreaks havoc in the area. He figures out something is wrong pretty quickly when his car hits a woman in the middle of a snowstorm. He attempts to get her to a hospital…and soon discovers that she is infected with a deadly virus.
Resident Evil is a zombie movie, but Cregger leans heavily into the mutation aspects that make the brand unique. There are some gnarly effects on display here. As Resident Evil unfolds, the courier finds himself in increasingly dangerous situations. This isn’t a super soldier fighting his way through a zombie horde. This is a hapless everyman running for his life. He acquires weapon upgrades along the way…but it doesn’t magically make him a proficient marksman. Instead, Cregger gives us a 90 minute thrill ride watching a regular guy trying to reach a destination with death waiting around every corner.
And it’s great.
More than that…Resident Evil feels fresh, exciting and is, by a large margin, the best movie to ever carry the Resident Evil name. It isn’t even close. This doesn’t feel like just another zombie movie…and it doesn’t bother trying to add in the social commentary that Romero’s version of the genre did so well. It’s just a blast from start to finish. Cregger set out to make a fun movie and threw everything at delivering exactly that. It’s lean. It’s mean. And it’s a fantastic time at the movies.
One thing that’s been lost in the ridiculous discourse surrounding the film is the answer to a very simple question. “Fans” will be quick to point out that Cregger’s Resident Evil doesn’t utilize any characters from the video game franchise…but they seem incredibly uninterested in why. To be fair…it’s a pretty obvious thing to most people. While the vocal minority has waited for what they consider a faithful adaptation of their favorite stories…Cregger is a filmmaker. He wanted to make a good movie instead. Leon Kennedy can (and has) starred in some excellent video games. He’s also 0-2 in being adapted as a live action film character.
It’s easy to understand why “fans” of the games would want to see their favorite characters get better film treatment. But let’s call it as it is. They’d just find something else to complain about. If Zach Cregger had made a movie about Leon Kennedy and Jill Valentine wandering around the infected Raccoon City…they’d have complained about the casting. Or the story not being beat for beat what they wanted it to be. Or any other number of nitpicks. Because as much as they may be “fans” of the games…they’re bigger fans of complaining about it.
That’s why I’ve put “fans” in parenthesis. I’m not talking about all fans of the series. I’m a fan of the series. Plenty of people are fans of the series that have looked forward to and will enjoy this version of Resident Evil. Plenty of people who have never played the games will too. Because Cregger made a good film version of Resident Evil. He’s the first one to do so. His trick was that he took inspiration from a world full of stories that already existed and approached it as a filmmaker looking to deliver a movie not a remake of games people already played. Not a series of fan service moments to appease people who don’t care about anything other than being serviced. As a storyteller who knows how to make enjoyable movies. His job isn’t to film live action cutscenes to make “fans” happy. It’s to make a great movie. He did his job. If that upsets you for some reason…maybe you need to reflect on that for a while.
Scare Value
If you want to have a good time…go see Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil. If you want to have a bad time…listen to a very vocal section of the Resident Evil fanbase instead. It’s a shame these people have probably chased Cregger away from making a follow-up after this one becomes an inevitable hit. This is a literal case of “why we can’t have nice things”. Bitter, entitled, gatekeeping losers who would rather watch the same thing over and over again than let someone with talent make something that’s actually good. At least we got this one.
4/5
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