The Resident Evil Retrospective Part 4-Beyond the Evil

Movie Adaptations of popular Video Games are nothing new to the world, they just generally aren’t considered great.  The past few years have seen exceptions to the rule with Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, Mortal Kombat (2021) and the Sonic the Hedgehog movies becoming positively received blockbusters.  That wasn’t always the case. For each of those aforementioned success stories, there’s Super Mario Bros., Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and every Uwe Boll movie ever made.  Given how popular the series had been upon release, it was inevitable that Resident Evil would get the big screen treatment.  Today, it holds a number of records in this regard including becoming the Video Game Movie with the most sequels and highest grossing Live Action Video Game franchise.  That’s amazing right?  Well…not really.

 
In 2002, Paul W.S. Anderson, director of the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie, brought Resident Evil to the big screen for the first time.  The film took inspiration primarily from the first game with a team of commandos being sent to investigate the lockdown of a top secret facility belonging to the Umbrella Corporation.  Once they themselves become trapped, the nightmares that had been unleased within descend upon them and it becomes a fight for survival as they try to escape before that becomes impossible.  While positively received for its atmosphere and action, the first Resident Evil film features no appearances by any member of the Video Games extensive cast.  Instead, we are introduced to Alice, played by Milla Jovovich, an original character who becomes the central character of the entire film saga.  This wouldn’t be a bad thing if this was just a stand alone film.  However, a cliffhanger ending showing Alice standing in the middle of a ruined Raccoon City, said sequels were coming. 

2004’s Resident Evil: Apocalypse brought Jovovich’s Alice back for another round and saw her teaming up with Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivera to escape Racoon City in a plot that borrowed heavily from Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.  Unfortunately, including all of these familiar characters and setting didn’t impress critics or franchise fans as the film was poorly received and derided for making Video Game protagonists secondary supporting characters and the terrible handling of the Nemesis, giving it a backstory connected to Alice that was unnecessary.  But that was only the start.  Beginning with 2007’s Resident Evil: Extinction, the film series took a controversial turn with its story.  Rather than continuing to adapt any of the games directly, Anderson (who wrote and directed the entire series save for the second and third films), created a world where the T-Virus had wiped out most of humanity and the planet, turning it into a nearly lifeless wasteland.  While an interesting way to separate itself from its Video Game counterparts, the movies decision to head down this path soon made them Resident Evil in name only.  While other characters like Albert Wesker, Leon S. Kennedy, Chris Redfield, Ada Wong, Barry Burton and Claire Redfield would appear in subsequent films, any potential story or character arcs were sidelined in favor of Alice, who while being an action movie icon for female bad asses, was pretty shallow as a character and a sore spot for fans of the games.  Still, while critically the films were received less and less positively, 2010’s Resident Evil: Afterlife, 2012’s Resident Evil: Retribution and 2017’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter were all financial hits, bringing the franchises total worldwide box office haul to over $1.2 billion. 

Just as Anderson and Jovovich were due to leave the series with The Final Chapter, word had been circulating about more Resident Evil films, possibly even a reboot.  Rumors persisted and soon became fact when 2021 saw the release of Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City.  Like Resident Evil: Apocalypse before it, Welcome to Raccoon City combined the stories of two video games into one, specifically the first two.  One storyline followed STARS Alpha Team (Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine and Albert Wesker) investigating the Spencer Mansion in the Arklay Mountains.  The other saw the T-Virus outbreak occur in Raccoon City and followed Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield’s struggle to escape.  While there was some controversy around some of the casting decisions, fans were still eager to see a film that actually had their favorite characters at the forefront instead of being pushed aside for someone new.  The film was released near the onset of a new variant of the COVID-19 virus and thus it’s box office attendance was severely affected during the holiday season.  Reception was mixed to Welcome to Raccoon City with many praising the cast, faithfulness to the setting and atmosphere but criticizing the lack of action and pacing problems that produced long lulls in between said action scenes.  Whether or not further sequels are put in place for this new iteration of Resident Evil remains unknown but I cant see this series staying away from the big screen for long. 

Thankfully, Japan and Anime were willing to provide Resident Evil fans with the stories and characters their the Live Action feature counterparts didn’t want to tell.  A trilogy of CG Anime films were produced between 2008 and 2017, each acting as an interquel set between the mainline games in the franchise and also acting as lead ins for them.  2008’s Resident Evil: Degeneration saw Leon and Claire reunite during a viral outbreak at an airport.  2012’s Resident Evil: Damnation found Leon dropped into a war torn European country to investigate the uses of Bio Weapons, which also finds him crossing paths with Ada Wong once more.  The most current of these Anime films is 2017’s Resident Evil: Vendetta.  In it, Leon shares co-lead with Chris and Rebecca Chambers to battle a madman deadest on unleashing a new virus upon the world.  However, while they may feature stories set within the main game continuity, much like their Live Action brethren, these movies have had a mixed reception (albeit much better than the Live Action movies).  Many applaud the focus on the core series cast.  However, the stories and action scenes are more devisive, with some saying the stories are either too complicated or bring nothing new to the universe, and the action ranges from good classic Resident Evil to over the top set pieces that rely on style and less on survival horror.  Between these films and the Live Action, though, I’d recommend the Anime films.  As stated, at least it feels more like Resident Evil than the Anderson films, but that’s where some of my own personal bias comes in. 

On the small screen, Resident Evil’s presence has been surprisingly minimal.  Only two TV Series have been produced, both by Netflix.  The first was 2021’s Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness.  Continuing in the same vein as the CG Anime films, Infinite Darkness reunited Leon S. Kenndey and Claire Redfield during a Zombie outbreak at the White House, which expands into a larger conspiracy both must combat on separate fronts.  While the animation and voice acting was praised, Infinite Darkness was criticized for not bringing anything truly new to the table outside of a couple of terrifying sequences.  Later, in 2022, a Live Action Series, simply titled Resident Evil, debuted on Netflix.  The series was another predominant departure from the source material, focusing on siblings Jade and Billie, during an outbreak that spreads to the rest of the world over the course of a decade.  While the series had a strong debut on the platform, critics and fans were far from satisfied.  The overwhelmingly negative backlash against the show, which seemed to feel more in the vein of a Walking Dead Spin Off more than Resident Evil, was so immense that Netflix cancelled it after one single season.  It’s surprising to think that a franchise with many Anime elements wouldn’t have more of a selection of TV offerings. 

26 years after the original classic terrorized gamers on the PlayStation, Resident Evil is still going strong.  The franchise has seen its ups and downs, dips in quality and resurgence to former glory.  We haven’t even gone into the plethora of spin off games, comics and other media spawned from the adventures of Chris Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy, Jill Valentine, Claire Redfield and their many allies.  With new DLC arriving for Resident Evil: Village and Resident Evil 4 Remake now one of the most anticipated titles of 2023, it’s safe to say this franchise has become as unkillable as the many monsters Umbrella and its subsidiaries pump out on a yearly basis.  You better believe whatever new terrors lie in wait, I’ll be joining the legions of fans ready to take them head on with a shotgun once we press that start button and hear “RESIDENT EVIL” once again.