An average movie

Somehow, I have watched all the ‘Resident Evil’ movies, in fact, I have even rewatched them recently and I still believe that the first instalment was actually a solid B flick (the sequels were all garbage though). Anyway, even though I have always been a huge fan of the video game (I actually bought the very first ‘Resident Evil’ game when it came out on the PlayStation), I can’t say I was dying to see another movie adaptation. However, when I heard that it would be directed by Zach Cregger, who was apparently a big fan of the video game as well, I became automatically intrigued, especially since I really enjoyed ‘Weapons’ and even loved ‘Barbarian’. Well, even though this movie seemed to be another hit for Cregger, to be honest, I thought it was rather disappointing after all. I wasn’t bothered at all that Cregger decided to ignore the intricate lore of the video game, in the contrary, I was more bothered by the fact that he didn’t tell any story at all after all. I mean, I did like the approach, the idea of focusing on some average guy with no skills whatsoever (basically, any dude like me who played this game at some point) who by accident ended up in Raccoon City and had to survive somehow this zombie apocalypse. However, well, there was pretty much nothing else in this movie after all. Basically, this movie gave two separate extended scenes, one at this farm (which, in retrospect, took way too much running time) and one at this hospital in Raccoon City and that was it. I get that the video game was all about going from one creepy place to another creepy place without getting eating up by some monsters, they really nailed this, that’s for sure, but it was also about stumbling some weird and dark tale which occurred in Raccoon City and there was basically none of that. What remained was some survivalist apocalyptic story which was mildly entertaining. They also kept hammering the fact that it was reproducing the feel of the game but I was not completely convinced. Sure, the main character felt more relatable than Alice and it was fun to see him upgrading his weapon on a regular basis and facing these damned padlocks but, in my opinion, it didn’t really go beyond that though. The way these monsters never died was also a weird choice (did that ever occur in the games? Not in the ones I have played) and his monster who kept chasing him was another seriously half-baked idea. Anyway, in spite of its flaws, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch, even if I was actually expecting more from it.

6/10