'Resident Evil' review: Zach Cregger breathes new life into a dormant franchise
Courtesy of Sony
Far and away the best and most efficient this franchise has ever been, writer-director Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil” is also the first installment that convincingly captures the experience of playing one of the games. No disrespect to Paul W. S. Anderson’s cartoonish but occasionally entertaining Milla Jovovich-led movies, which began in 2002, but this bloody, energetic revamp understands that authenticity does not require overwhelming an audience with lore and Easter eggs. Cregger and co-writer Shay Hatten keep the mythology in the background and concentrate on something refreshingly simple: a survival-horror story with momentum, personality and a clear objective.
Completely disconnected from the previous movies, “Resident Evil” offers a clean entry point into this universe and quickly sends audiences hurtling along on the blood-soaked, adrenaline-fueled ride Cregger and Hatten have constructed. It is proudly silly without becoming disposable, finding humor in increasingly ludicrous situations while still treating every new threat as a genuine danger. Cregger recognizes that the mechanics of this universe are entertaining enough on their own, giving the film room to have fun without becoming weighed down by exposition.
The story unfolds from the perspective of Bryan, played by “Weapons” star Austin Abrams, a hapless organ-transplant courier who has just learned that his girlfriend is pregnant. When he is offered double pay to deliver a package to the Umbrella Corporation, the most prominent holdover from the games, he accepts despite having a vehicle that is clearly not equipped for the journey. Naturally, Bryan soon flies off the road and encounters a woman whose body contorts in horrifying ways and who refuses to die, no matter how many bullets he puts into her.
That confrontation sends Bryan scrambling through one improbable sequence after another. He stumbles into an isolated farmhouse occupied by a dog from hell, descends into an abandoned tunnel leading toward the city and repeatedly finds himself pursued by the unknown “monsters,” as he calls them. Cregger stages these encounters with an escalating sense of panic, making each location feel like another hostile level Bryan must survive before he can reach his destination.
The creatures are gnarly, imaginative and far removed from the comparatively straightforward zombies of the earlier films.
Their bodies morph and blend together, eventually forming a grotesque mass of human limbs that recalls both “The Last of Us” and the climax of the video game “Inside.” Those comparisons are easy to make, but Cregger’s visual imagination keeps the monsters from feeling derivative. The designs complement the film’s broader approach to horror, in which familiar genre ingredients are pushed just far enough to become strange again.
Despite those gaming influences, this lean and mean version of “Resident Evil” rarely feels like a video game adaptation in the conventional narrative sense, and that is one of its greatest strengths. Cregger has already established a knack for constructing bizarre worlds, withholding information and finding unexpected humor inside grisly situations. Here, he brings those instincts to a piece of intellectual property that has been recycled so many times that it seemed incapable of surprise. Instead of worrying about connective tissue or anticipating every demand from longtime fans, he tells a singular, self-contained story that moves with the urgency of a side mission gone horribly wrong.
Abrams proves to be the perfect guide through that madness, giving Bryan enough nervous energy, bewildered charm and reluctant determination to keep audiences invested in his increasingly impossible journey. The pregnancy subplot also gives the adventure a playful emotional undercurrent, allowing Cregger to weave Bryan’s anxiety about becoming a father into the chaos surrounding him. Images of Bryan eating a bowl of Life cereal or encountering childlike creatures may not be especially subtle, but they fit comfortably within a movie that wears its ideas lightly and remains more interested in entertaining than overexplaining them.
Everything builds toward a rollicking climax in which Bryan must complete his objective while battling creatures that grow more elaborate and disgusting by the minute. Cregger keeps the action legible, the jokes well-timed and the stakes immediate, never allowing the spectacle to overwhelm the scrappy survival story at its center. It is the kind of carefully controlled mayhem that looks effortless even when every sequence is operating at full speed.
The result is a taut 90-minute detour that is every bit as satisfying as firing up an old PlayStation and losing yourself in one more mission. Cregger does not reinvent “Resident Evil” by expanding its mythology. He revives it by stripping the concept back to its most entertaining elements and rebuilding it around his own wonderfully strange sensibilities, proving that even the most dormant franchise can feel alive again when the right filmmaker is given room to play.
Grade: B+
RESIDENT EVIL is now playing in theaters.
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