Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil is Equal parts quick-witted, weighty and thoughtless (Film Review)

‘Obviously, if there were a bunch of infected zombie things on this train, I’d beat them and save the world, right?

“End it, maybe.”

On the way home, I realised I may have slightly too much in common with Bryan, the hapless protagonist of Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil. In fact, I think we all feel a bit like Bryan. Muttering to ourselves, cursing the universe. Perpetually hopeless, his circumstances are not much better. 

It’s a long night in Raccoon City. 

Bryan is a courier, and he has one job – deliver an unknown parcel from one hospital to the next.

Austin Abrams’ shriekish everyman bumbles through blistering snow, breaks his car, faces a demented demon-dog John Carpenter style, loses bullets, gets bullied, beat, bitten, infected and still can’t find one single bar of cell phone service. 

It’s not ideal. Resident Evil may very well have been dubbed Bryan and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Video game movies are typically zombie-like in their own right. Cregger’s adaptation is number eight in a clot of technologically-confused cash grabs, begotten with time, and by far the best. 

Equal parts quick-witted, weighty and thoughtless, Resident Evil works so well because it is Zach Cregger doing what he does best – having fun. With Abrams as his muse, and the camera, a material presence, itself, chasing him through its one-way structure, Cregger’s reboot has a surprising amount of humanity.

Bryan is no brooding bad boy, and his plots tend to misfire (literally and figuratively). But behind each act of lacking self-preservation, there is a lot of heart.

 As he keeps reminding the few humans he comes into contact with, his package, as far as he knows, might contain the organ that might save a child, someone’s parent. A person. When he hits a catatonic zombie-lady, his impulse is not to run, but to help. 

Click to view – Includes Spoiler

He risks his safety – and even gets bitten – for a zombified little girl. He risks himself for two Umbrella employees, even after realising the corporation is the source of his troubles. He keeps trying to deliver his parcel, which he comes to learn is not an organ, but the sacred cure to the infected. Even as Bryan’s infection mutates, until the end, he never stops trying to help others. It’s a jarring contrast to the cold, corporate individualism of Umbrella.

Now, he’s no hero – Bryan is squeamish, uncertain and juvenile – but he tries. There is an ‘us-ness’ to Bryan, a ‘me-and-youness.’ Each mundane act of kindness culminates in a true, overwhelming sense of human goodness. The normal sort. The small things you can see your friend doing, your brother, the stranger next to you on the bus. 

Cregger and Abrams are ungrounded in their approach. They do not take themselves very seriously, and the movie is better for it. 

The ambience is striking. Scored by Hays and Ryan Holladay, who also worked with the director on last year’s Weapons, the film’s shadowy sound mixed with its set creates a daunting and immersive atmosphere. Cregger’s corpse-lined streets, and his creaky, vacant houses and RVs, are like an endless bad dream, fuzzy at the edges. 

Although it is an effectively scary movie, overall, Cregger is partial to a quip, sometimes at the cost of letting the horror hold its breath. Still, it’s not a huge issue; the packed screening certainly didn’t think so. Resident Evil got the audience both jumping out of their seats and squealing with laughter throughout. The film has all the strengths of Weapons without the opaque, heavy-handedness.

As somebody who has never played the games, I never once found myself lost. Fast-paced, the plot never meanders into uncharted territory. It kept my full attention. Bryan knows as much as us, which makes the learning process all the more rewarding. Resident Evil stands well as very much its own thing, and this first movie doesn’t feel like the end.

Perhaps audiences will receive a new host of video game movies, made not for the potential of their IP, but their story.

A sequel has not officially been greenlit yet, but with it becoming the highest-rated video game movie of all time, its open ending, and the franchise’s rich lore, there is definitely room for a follow-up or two!

Resident Evil is currently showing at all local cinemas