Resident Evil has been an enduring franchise since its release in 1996. It has spanned video games and movies, and the film series has been rebooted with an acclaimed horror director at the helm.
Bryan (Austin Abrams) is a medical courier who is tasked with delivering a vital package to Raccoon City. This simple job goes awry because of the snowy conditions and hitting a woman randomly walking in the middle of nowhere. Bryan soon faces people infected with a mysterious virus as he travels deeper into the city.
Movies based on video games generally have a bad reputation. For the longest time, they were a critical punching bag: even better-received films like Mortal Kombat (1995) had a mixed reception from critics. Even up-and-coming directors, like Duncan Jones and Justin Kurzel, struggled when adapting video games. It has only been in recent years that video game adaptations have been seen as more respectable. The Sonic the Hedgehog movies have improved with each entry; the Super Mario movies made over a billion dollars each, and on TV, The Last of Us and Fallout have been met with acclaim.
The Resident Evil’s film series record has been spotty. They have been commercially successful, but critically reviled, and the Netflix reboot flopped so hard that the series has been rebooted for a second time in five years. Resident Evil (2026) showed some ambition behind the camera because Zach Cregger was hired to write and direct, and the trailers highlighted the new film was from the director of Barbarian and Weapons. The gamble has seemingly paid off because Resident Evil (2026) is now the highest-rated video game movie on Rotten Tomatoes, smashing past the record set by Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
Cregger went for a Keep It Simple, Stupid approach, much like what Prey did with the Predator series. Resident Evil (2026) followed an ordinary man who was thrust into an extraordinary situation. Bryan stumbled into the escalating situation. It started with him going into a remote house and facing a couple of the infected before going into the metaphorical lion’s den. Like a video game, Resident Evil (2026) started small and built up the story and the danger. The film didn’t get bogged down with the convoluted lore of games. This made Resident Evil (2026) a lean film with a 90-minute runtime (less if the credits are excluded).
Bryan had simple goals. He took the job because he wanted the overtime pay after finding out his girlfriend was pregnant, deliver the medical package, and survive. Resident Evil (2026) ended up being the second film in quick succession about deadly medical couriering missions, the other being Runner. Bryan was an everyman because he had no special training and was hopeless with guns, but at times he was a bit of an idiot, leading to the question: how did he survive so long?
Cregger has proven himself as a horror director. Resident Evil (2026) had some great moments. The scene of zombies running off the buildings was particularly effective, and PoV shots of Bryan walking high up in the air gave me a sense of vertigo, like in Fall 2: Deadpoint. If I were in that situation, I would have just let the zombies eat me. Resident Evil has been a more bombastic franchise than something like The Last of Us, which was more character-driven. Resident Evil (2026) had a lot of spectacle, visual effects, and splasher, which made it feel more like a Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson movie.
The creatures didn’t play by traditional zombie rules. Shooting them in the head didn’t stop them, just slowed them. One of the big threats was the infected amassing into a horrific rat-king. It upped the ante.
The most surprising aspect of Resident Evil (2026) was the humour. The trailers made it seem like it was going to be a serious film. The first teaser showed Bryan making a heartfelt phone call. The humour started when Bryan gave his traffic incident victim a lift. Sadly, the humour was one of the weakest aspects because it ended up undercutting the drama, tension, and emotion. There was a running gag about the indestructible locks, which felt like a reference to implausible things in video games.
Resident Evil (2026) was a fast-paced splatterfest that went for back-to-basics principles. There were effective moments, but it wasn’t the great video game movie that some critics have claimed it to be.
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