Resident Evil Review

Resident Evil is yet another film adaptation of Capcom's wildly popular video game franchise, and aims to recreate the feeling of playing a game from the series -- a wild, clumsy, and often amateurish scrabble across a forbidding, infected landscape.

Gone is Milla Jovovich's preternaturally skilled action heroine, Alice. Here she is replaced by Bryan Hodukavich (Austin Abrams), a hapless everyman of limited vocabulary, and a more appropriate surrogate for the gamer audience. Bryan is a medical courier tasked with transporting a very important package to the Raccoon City General Hospital. He also struggles with his relationship with his girlfriend, Michelle, and the creepily encroaching specter of fatherhood.

If you've heard of Raccoon City before, you know that this story takes a horrific detour, as our protagonist slams up against an array of zombies and other bizarre creatures. The clear sequential progression of the narrative from one location to the next, from snowy farm to big city to icky sewer, resembles what one usually sees in a Resident Evil video game. Certain sequences, like one involving a barn and a ladder, also seem like clear homages to memorable moments from the games -- in this case, Resident Evil 4.

For director Zach Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian), Resident Evil provides a new challenge: How does a director known for his unique and creative horror film set-ups keep us glued to the mystery of the story, when we already know what's causing everything, because we have played the video games?

To his credit, Cregger remains an expert craftsman of tense scenes, and can still defy our expectations about how the action will unfold. He knows exactly where you're looking for the next big scare, and he won't give it to you. Hypothetically speaking, if you're gazing at a window, assuming a monster will crash through, it won't. But three minutes later, when you're complacent, something new will fly screaming out of a cupboard.

The visuals are appropriately grim, dull-colored, lacking saturation -- baroque in a way, but with its horrible subjects proportioned more like those in a Mannerist painting. Cregger's love of tracking shots serves him well here, too, as this really is a one man journey. The film doesn't have the seamless camerawork of González Iñárritu's Birdman or Hitchcock's Rope, but there's a similar focus on perspective.

The movie ultimately falters a bit in mood and narrative. Resident Evil sees Cregger, a former sketch comedian, dialing up the comedy, often at the expense of tension. While it frequently thrills and amuses, the film will disappoint those seeking a purer horror experience.

The lack of any real plot mystery, or characters who make you lean in and listen to them, irrevocably damages the story. Perhaps the biggest surprise is how the recent, Westerner-scripted Resident Evil video games, from Resident Evil 7 onward, provide more compelling and fleshed-out characters than anyone in this film. There are no Jack Bakers or Alcina Dimitrescus here. As likable and relatable as Abrams's Bryan is, his performance mostly consists of wide-eyed, open-mouthed astonishment, comically shrieking, and saying "fuck" a lot. The attempt to develop his character by giving him a fatherhood arc feels perfunctory as well. Bryan really is just an NPC.

I found myself wishing I could reach into the screen to pull out the various notes that one discovers in a Resident Evil video game -- anything that could make the people here more intriguing. That's an unexpected and disappointing feeling while watching a movie from the filmmaker who gave us Aunt Gladys, who herself was campy and scary enough to fit pretty perfectly into a Resident Evil game.

What one is left with is a breezy, action-filled hour-and-half that will often tickle you, occasionally startle you, but never make you think or feel anything deep.

Image: Sony Pictures