Directed By Zach Cregger

Starring – Austin Abrams, Paul Walter Hauser, Zach Cherry

The Plot – Follows a hapless courier (Abrams) tasked with delivering a package to a remote hospital. He soon finds himself caught in the middle of an outbreak and must fight through hordes of mutated creatures to survive.

Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore and adult language throughout.

RESIDENT EVIL – Official Trailer (4K)

POSITIVES

Ravaged by seven feature length films of increasing inferiority, as well as a lethargically forgettable Netflix series, the Resident Evil intellectual property felt dead in the water until Cregger showed ambitious eagerness to adapt it under his own terms, and while this inevitably will lead to a divisive finished product that leaves the toxicity of its fandom on the outside looking in, Cregger has restored the roar with its single most compelling installment to date, appraising legitimacy and artistry in the same ways that allowed the games to feel truly groundbreaking for their time. What I appreciate most about this version of Resident Evil isn’t just the condensed scope and scale of its virus outbreak, where we remain faithfully invested alongside a singular protagonist throughout one unpredictable night of crazy Hell, but also the simplistic structure of its screenplay to flow so seamlessly with urgency and anxiousness during its 85-minute runtime, without the need to forcefully imbed so much unnecessary fan service familiarity for those expecting their own version of what the movie should pertain. This is not to say that Cregger doesn’t openly embrace the gaming tangibility of his execution, with everything from first-shooter perspectives, to exposition dumps from secondary characters, to the individualized objective challenges of survivalist horror each finding their way so influentially to the integrity of the experience, but just that Cregger doesn’t require familiar characters and gaming outlines to intrusively dictate the terms of his own narrative navigation, and considering Cregger opts for more of the comedic underlining in tone that has been present in Barbarian and Weapons, the material lends itself so effortlessly to painting such a false sense of security for those quietly sedated moments of audience interpretability, in turn leaving them disheveled by the evolution of meticulously timed jump scares, the likes of which even managed to effectively penetrate this well-experienced horror hound twice with the clever blocking and fake-outs of his camera movements and framing. The thrills aren’t all riveting jolts, however, as Cregger not only articulates a bleakly ominous degree of enticing atmosphere that permeates and prolongs the suspense and tension assembled with Abrams overarching vulnerability, but also flourishes with these gruesomely grotesque creature designs that showcase some disturbing bodily horror with how they uniquely weaponize the extent of their viciously visceral attacks. A majority of the effects work is done practically, which appraises an influential believability to their motions and enactment, but even when the production opts for the special effects of C.G, it emanates so subtly that it never has a chance to stand out counterproductively, in turn cementing the idea that Cregger never overlooked the meaning and merit of utilizing a majority of the movie’s budget to bring his nightmarish imagery to life, making them feel more like a spreading virus than ever before. If this isn’t enough, Cregger also emphasizes the extent of these physical conflicts with a couple of garishly impactful kills that tenderly tickle our tastebuds with carnage candy, particularly one involving man’s best friend that is abruptly resolved with a new coat of paint to a barn door. The film also represents another intoxicating opportunity to gush indulgingly in Dariusz Wolski’s spellbinding cinematography, where aside from effectively emulating the aforementioned dual perspectives of first and third person perspectives to the visual storytelling of gaming sensibilities, Wolski revels in these tightly claustrophobic and quietly disorienting spaces that zero in on the isolation factor of our protagonist’s dreaded disposition. Wolski’s use of transfixing lighting, deeply engulfing shadows, and deliberately prolonged shot compositions certainly allow the horror to feel all-consuming in the magnitude of its intensity, but beyond that offers a striking artistic contrast in the combination of snow-covered landscapes and dark forest roads lit only by car headlights, and considering the entirety of this series’ previous efforts are marred by artificially hollow and ghastly pale color patterns, Wolski sizzles with some stylistic flare that finds beauty in the brutality, proving how seamlessly horror works in winterized confines, with the integrity of the imagery feeling detectable for a film that takes place entirely overnight. While on the subject of the production, the scintillating score from longtime Cregger collaborators Ryan and Hays Holladay conjure these atmospherically rich and condemning tones that inject these anxiously alarming action sequences with menacing dread expanding from initial instrumental repetition, with shades of Ennio Morricone’s iconic score from The Thing bearing many of the same distinct similarities against dreary snowscapes. While much about the Holladay’s themes convey enigmatically to the imagery, the jazz horns and measured synthesizers stand out most dominatingly in commanding such a feverishly uncontrollable chaotic tone, in turn matching much of the frenzied fun of the games that reveled in their own madness, and while this is the eighth live action adaptation to this gaming franchise, the Holladay’s compositions feel so uniquely psychological and unorthodox to anything previously rendered in the previous films, establishing unshakeable presence and consciousness over the integrity of the finished product with some of their most grippingly unshakeable work to date. Lastly, while many will debate about centering this film around an incompetently bumbling protagonist, I found Austin Abrams work to constantly come in the clutch in maintaining the appeal of an engrossing presence at the forefront of the film’s entirety, tapping into a goofily endearing oddball energy that perfectly encapsulates the mounting frustrations that culminate from such a terrifyingly foreign situation. Abrams comedic delivery in scathing discontent certainly attains relatability to how many of us would respond with adversarial odds against us, but his exhilarated emphasis during intense sequences provide a heightened sense of panic and paranoia that work comfortably in the confines of his corresponding comedic timing and tense discomfort, and while Abrams nearly stole the show in last year’s Weapons, there’s no mistake about the measured influence of his impact here, as the movie very much serves as a showcasing vehicle for a performer comfortable enough to revel in the vulnerabilities of his character, offering such a starkly refreshing to Milla Jovovich’s unstoppable Alice, which surmises stakes to the first time in this franchise.

NEGATIVES

Though Resident Evil is undoubtedly the best executed installment of this mostly inconsistent franchise, it regrettably is the weakest of Cregger directed films thus far, as a result of some glaring detractions within the script that eventually came to diminish the appeal of its characters to the audience. If you’re not someone who immediately gravitates to Abrams’ bluntly dry reactions, then you may find this a tough sit, as the script concerns itself very minimally with the development of his corresponding characterization, even when it enacts some unforeseen responsibility to the character at the beginning of its third act. Not to say that a character like this necessarily requires a book of backstory to effectively gauge, but because the opening act wastes little time setting the events of the plot to motion, it criminally oversteps the foundation building opportunities to make this about Bryan’s immaturity instead of his working objective, and when the script does eventually deter into some of those emotionally resonant moments, it falls flat on account of the character failing to grow over the integral use of his meaningful minutes, where the resounding stupidity of his irresponsible actions typically make it difficult to see him as the protagonist leading this movie’s survival. This leads to my second problem with the film, as too many instances with Bryan’s enacted actions typically result in some unforeseen surmising conflict to his minimized awareness, and while I understand that characters in these kinds of movies make bafflingly stupid decisions all of the time, the ones here felt transparently deliberate to push the story ahead, making it difficult to believe for a single solitary second that he would survive these various attacks, let alone lead the push towards an alleviating antidote. On one hand, it’s certainly refreshing that Cregger establishes an anti-hero kind of protagonist to this story, but at the eventual cost of mind-numbingly braindead moves that serve as the basis for his own adversity, in turn leaving him feeling like the idiot in these movies who gets offed during the opening act, instead of the empathetic protagonist who we’re sworn to approach understandability at eye level with. Finally, while I found much about the opening two acts to be everything that I wanted and more from a Cregger-led Resident Evil movie, the third act does regrettably end on a bit of a down note, courtesy of a sloppily rushed and unfulfilling resolution that abruptly finished without an exclamation point of an ending to maintain the momentum of everything culminated. Creggor has clearly stated that this is a one-and-done opportunity to indulge in the Resident Evil franchise, so I’m not exactly looking for a cliffhanger to tie into a future installment, but the reality of an unpopular decision made during the second act comes back to haunt this movie during its most meaningful moments, and considering the final twenty minutes of the movie feel more impatient than its previous minutes, it leaves more to be desired with finding a compelling climax, as the movie opts for a shockingly evocative visual along the lines of The Substance, rather than articulating a big bang to send its audience reeling.

OVERALL
Resident Evil is a dizzyingly dire and brutally blood-soaked blast for longtime enthusiasts of the franchise, who have waited nearly twenty-five years for a live-action installment to live up to the immense expectations of their in-game experiences. While the clumsy climax and mindless decisions of its protagonist don’t exactly expunge the circumstantial stupidity from its minimized scope and scale, the ruthlessly enthralling and comedic-heavy direction from Zach Cregger bites into a freshly innovative approach for the optimistic outlook of the franchise, bringing back the suspense, tension, and legitimacy that have been missing so evidently

My Grade: 7.6 or B