While my experience with Resident Evil is restricted to its newer outings starring Ethan Winters, I'm acquainted with some of the touchstone moments from the classic games-such because the iconic turning head reveal of the first undead within the Spencer Mansion's dining hall-which this film seems to recreate pretty faithfully. This film combines the very first two games into one tight, nonsensical package as, beyond the key moments that fans will recognise, there's almost no semblance of a plot. Instead, the film lurches from set piece to set piece, embracing wink at white-knuckled Resi fans completely.
Not everything is through the books, however, as Leon's holding cell deep and meaningful doesn't amount to Tyrant bursting with the wall like the Kool-Aid mascot, and Wesker's heel turn-which is justified in-game-feels unearned and odd here. These creative liberties don't necessarily hamper the things this film does well, but it does raise questions of in which the sequel could go from here. Using the city levelled by Umbrella in the last act, it's difficult to imagine we'll ever see Nemesis later on instalments. That's unless they go off-script inside a big way.
I do believe the film was helmed well enough by Roberts, whose experience with horror-thrillers held him in good stead here. I got a sense of classic, decades-old horror from the opening in the orphanage, but the film found it difficult to strike the total amount of action and horror throughout the runtime. When you consider they've tried to inject humour in too, it's easy to see why a dark tone felt all over the place. The scene where Leon dozes off to the nineties pop classic “Crush” by Jennifer Paige only for the fuel truck to jackknife and explode outside the station felt like the epitome of the tonal mess. There are a few good moments-the boy hiding under the table got me good-but the scares largely fell through the wayside in lieu of fairly serviceable action.
The film's cast would be a genuine mixed bag. I liked certain interpretations, like the Redfields themselves, however, I felt Jill Valentine and Leon S. Kennedy, portrayed by Hannah John-Kamen and Avan Jogia respectively, were dealt bad hands, particularly the latter. In the games he's a resilient rookie cop, here he's the butt of each and every joke and that i feel like they did him dirty. As well as for a man who, I feel, has been good in The Umbrella Academy for a few seasons, Tom Hopper's turn as Wesker is nothing short of dreadful.
And the mid-credits scene he strongly features in-while not directly his fault-took this movie down an entire point. It's that bad.
Because of the seemingly directionless narrative and abhorrent dialogue, it's hard to sell this like a better film outright over the original Paul W. S. Anderson adaptation, though It is a better Resident Evil film. It's such an earnest need to take all the moments fans adore from the first couple of games and put them on the silver screen but it will that, even if it's towards the detriment of each and every other facet of the film.
