Resident Evil (2026) - Movie Review

Hello everybody I'm Dan Merl here with my review of Resident Evil which is in theaters now. It is the latest movie adapted from a video game and it's a notoriously tough genre because how do you take the excitement of playing a game but translate that into the movie form? What do you include? What characters? What stories? How do you make everyone happy? You never really can. It is a very very difficult formula to get right. Studios and filmmakers very rarely get it right and for those that have gotten it wrong in the past I think they should go watch this movie and take some notes. This is the latest movie from Zack Krager who broke out as the writer director of 2022's Barbarian then followed that up with last summer's Oscar winner Weapons and now adapts one of the biggest video game franchises of all time which first launched 30 years ago and really took off with 1998's Resident Evil 2 which provides the background framework of this movie. Now I've played some Resident Evil but I'm not a consistent franchise gamer but I don't think you have to be to really sense how much Zack Krager actually loves these games. This isn't an adaptation of a game, this is an adaptation of what it feels like to play the game and it has an authenticity that you just can't really fake. Plenty of studios have tried to cynically grab a popular video game title to make a quick buck and make a movie that's not very good and not even really close to the original but this is not one of them. Austin Abrams pretty much carries the overworked driver for a medical delivery service that gets donated organs to their intended recipients. When he takes one last job on a dark snowy night it takes him to the outskirts of Raccoon City but what he hoped would be a well-paying late night drop-off turns into a nightmare when he discovers that something very terrible is happening to the citizens in and around the city and he soon finds himself on the run from legions of people who are tough to escape and even tougher to kill. Now previous Resident Evil movies and I haven't seen all of them I've seen a few of them deal with the franchise's overarching mythology things like the Umbrella Corporation but this movie doesn't it's not that they don't exist it's just that the focus of this film is much smaller than that this is pretty much Brian's story. It's pretty much entirely from his point of view and he operates on the outskirts of that broader franchise mythology this is not an attempt to wipe away the story that gamers love this is just another story happening at the same time a Resident Evil tale that was never adapted into its own game. In pre-release interviews Craker has acknowledged that he has heard the frustrations of Resident Evil fans who wanted to see existing characters specifically Leon who was the lead character in Resident Evil 2 and didn't like that he was telling his own story in this movie and I think that a lot of those people are going to feel really silly if they decide to actually see the film and not review bomb it from their homes because it's hard for me to think of a video game movie not even just in recent memory ever that has more respect for both the original material and also the people who love those games. Most video game adaptations sure they might include some characters or some stories from the source material but they try to kind of push the actual game or gameplay off to the margins they'll throw in a little wink or a nod you know throw a bone to the fans out there but they really want to just try to do their own thing and I'm talking about movies like Doom and Uncharted and Max Payne. Craker constructs his movie as if the audience is the gamer the movie is the game and we're watching it unfold in front of us and it's not just that it includes familiar elements it's that it's crafted to bring the gaming experience to a live-action film. Stylistically Craker rarely employs a locked off camera most of the time the camera is in motion usually right behind Brian just over his shoulder kind of mimicking that third person view that you probably are used to from not just the Resident Evil games but from countless other games. At other times there are some angles that are right behind a weapon that's being pointed around kind of a barrel POV shot or just over the top of it which is something else that people who have played the games would be very familiar with. Instead of treating game mechanics and visuals as something to be sprinkled in just enough to please fans the movie employs the visual form of gaming and uses that form to build a movie that also works well as a survival horror film. A movie fan that has never played one second of Resident Evil will absolutely be able to enjoy and appreciate this movie on a movie level it's not so exclusionary that it feels like watching a let's play stream on YouTube but that extra level for gamers is really rich from scenes where Brian scavenges through cabinets and drawers for precious ammunition to encounters with other characters that essentially function like cut scenes in a video game. Plus I'm sure that there were a lot of other inside jokes and references that I didn't even catch and would have if I'd spent a lot more time playing games in the Resident Evil franchise. Zack Kroeger is not a director who just wants to attach his name to this Resident Evil brand in order to boost his own career you can tell he was genuinely excited about making this Resident Evil movie and if some of these so-called fans who have spent so long criticizing the film were to actually walk into this with an open mind then I think that they would understand that this isn't somebody a director writer director who is out there to ruin or wreck the thing that they love he wants to lovingly depict it he's one of them and it's crazy to me that apparently so many people have been lined up against it based off of basically nothing at the center of essentially the whole movie is Austin Abrams who I also really enjoyed in weapons last year he's kind of a chameleon he looks and feels in Resident Evil like a true everyman not an action hero who we're told is an everyman he's scared he screws things up he's bad with guns and he never really comes to terms with exactly what's happening there was never a moment where I felt like the movie cheated with him as far as skill or ability because he felt so relatable and Abrams also injects a lot of levity into his performance this is actually a pretty funny film as well and it helps that this movie looks fantastic the cinematographer is Dariusz Wolski who has shot seven Ridley Scott movies including The Martian and Napoleon as well as Sweeney Todd and The Crow and Crimson Tide and the first four Pirates of the Caribbean films so much of Resident Evil is set in almost complete darkness but it still feels highly stylized the blacks are pitch black which allows what little light there is to just cut through it like a knife the look of the film and the motion of the camera and shout out to the camera operators there as well are real highlights of this film and I think that it's one of the best looking movies I've seen this year Resident Evil also features some really gnarly creature design and a lot of the blood and gore effects are practical which adds a literal visceral feel to the movie the digital effects do tick up as the movie goes along but it never feels too cartoonish given what you're dealing with if there was a part of the movie that worked a little less well for me I'd say it's the third act if you're familiar with Zack Krager's movies and especially Weapons and Barbarian you know that he likes to go for it at the end of his films and he goes for it again I didn't mind the direction that the film took it just felt a little too rushed for me and also maybe a little too for lack of a better word big compared to what came before it's one of the very rare times where I actually wish that a movie was five or ten minutes longer than it is Resident Evil comes in at about 95 minutes including in credits and it is refreshing to see a movie that doesn't overstay its welcome but I think that maybe it is a little too efficient with its storytelling and I would have liked to experience a bit more of what it eventually had in store for us because it was a really surprising way to end the movie but also an entertaining and kind of devilishly fun way as well but those are really minor issues that shouldn't detract from the fact that this is first and foremost a really slick effective and gnarly horror movie that should also be a Resident Evil movie that reasonable fans of the games enjoy it's also one of the only truly solid video game adaptations instead of just being acceptably good I am really digging Zack Greger's filmography in these last few years and there are countless examples where a director like Zack Greger breaks out with a small or indie hit and then is given a big franchise only to be swallowed up by the Hollywood machine because they don't really want that director's movie they want that director's name and they want to make whatever studio slop they were always going to make anyway Zack Greger is able to buck that trend he obviously made the Resident Evil that he wanted to make that was also good and that was also something that was loyal to the source material so studio heads take note this is how you should do it if you want a talented filmmaker to take on a big franchise like this give them the freedom and the ability to make the movie that they want to make and trust that they're going to make something good so on my personal scale Resident Evil gets a very solid it's good rating it's a big recommendation from me and you know that horror isn't exactly my number one go-to genre but if the horror movie is good then it's like any other movie and I really enjoyed this one it's a fun time in the theater but what do you think are you heading out to see it this weekend let me know down in the comments below and as always stay tuned right here for the latest in movie news reviews box office and more until next time stay safe and I'll see you then