Zach Cregger's Resident Evil understands the feeling of playing the games better than it understands the plot of them, and honestly that is what makes it work. Bryan is not Leon Kennedy. He is a down to earth medical courier having the worst shift of his life, and Cregger drops you into Raccoon City the way the games made you feel it: cold empty streets, pulsing synth dread, every locked door and low magazine a small crisis. The visuals are gorgeous in a grim way, and the theme underneath is simple and human. This is what the outbreak looks like to a random person who was just trying to do their job when the world ended around them.
As a standalone horror movie, it is some of Cregger's best work, tense and strange and funny in the same way Barbarian and Weapons were funny, with Bryan's panic and bad luck doing half the work. But as a Resident Evil movie, it kind of misses the mark. Take out the words Raccoon City and Umbrella and you could call it almost anything, and the last third is where that shows. It drifts away from the tight grounded nightmare of the first two acts, and by the end the humor tips over from sharp into slapstick. It earns its scares and most of its laughs, but the finish asks too much of a movie that was at its best when it was small.
My rating: 9 out of 10. Flawed at the finish, but one of the most fun horror watches in a long time.
Own it or rent it here: 4K: https://link.amazon/B0icdliT7 Blu-ray: https://link.amazon/B0cVN7l5g Rent on Prime: https://link.amazon/B0cJYxxvC
As an Amazon Associate, Quill & Crown earns from qualifying purchases. All affiliate purchases help support our family store.