By Matthew Moorcroft

Highest Recommendation

• Directed by Zach Cregger
• Starring Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter Hauser
• R

How do you translate a game outside of a game? That’s the question that has eluded Hollywood and places outside of Hollywood ever since the original live action Super Mario Bros. film was released in 1993, and while they have had success stories in some regards to adapting the most popular medium in the world at the moment they still struggle to actually translate them in a way beyond a simple reading of the text. While stuff like The Last of Us or Fallout are either slavishly faithful or feel like stories ripped from the games themselves and have their merits as adaptations, the interactivity that comes from the medium of games is something that is lost in translation; Ellie’s brutal, inhuman vengeance or Sonic’s super speed both lose something when you aren’t the one controlling them.

So it’s fascinating to me that while Zach Cregger’s formally ambitious – and wildly unique – take on Resident Evil might take story liberties, mostly in the form of refusing to actually adapt any of the games’ baseline stories in favor of a “sidequel” to the series’ wildly acclaimed second installment from 1998, it’s most certainly the first video game adaptation to “get it”. It’s a film’s whose main conceit is that of adapting mechanics and gameplay rather then just the baseline plot, and in essence that means Resident Evil, for all of it’s new characters and story, might be the most faithful of any game adaptation out on the market right now.

And it’s a perfect simple premise for Cregger, who has made it a point in his now impressive three movie streak to have easy to sell, great pitches for films. Resident Evil might be his easiest one yet, being that of a “point A to point B” flick not dissimilar to many of the actual Resident Evil stories in the games but also great flicks like 1917 or Mad Max: Fury Road, meaning Resident Evil has a lean, mean feeling about itself that gives it no fat on it’s bones. It’s all meat, and it’s wonderfully goopy, gory meat at that as our lead courier Bryan gets all matter of blood, guts, acid, and even a little bit of tentacle on him as the runtime progresses.

With so much of the runtime stuck on our lead, Austin Abrams has a star making turn here in a role that runs the gambit from Bruce Campbell esqe horror-comedy stupidity to deeply sympathetic, tragic figure in a hell that he can’t escape from. That hell, which not only has zombies and mutants but also a legion of weird freaks that feel like demented, nightmarish creations Umbrella wished it could dream of, is one that also keeps bringing back the fear of parenthood and late stage capitalism to the forefront as it’s major conceit thematically. What do you do as a possible parent when the entire world is falling apart, nobody can afford anything, and you have to take on possibly dangerous work just to make ends meet? Cregger doesn’t really have an answer here for that but he certainly gives Abrams good stuff to chew on in terms of motivation which makes Bryan a focused, deeply entertaining character throughout the entire 95 minutes he’s on screen.

But as great as Abrams is, it’s really the Cregger show here again. If Barbarian was the movie that starts at 100 and never lets up and Weapons was the one that starts before the credits roll, then Resident Evil is the movie that breaks the scale entirely and threatens to give you a heart attack. His direction is relentless, assaulting you with a new scare or twist or some kind of crazy terrifying monstrosity at every single turn and it’s all designed around the simple act of just going forward into the night. That’s where the scares are, right? And as a player, you have just got to see the scares even if you don’t want to. You got to know what the big, fat guy in the sewers does even if it’s not going to end well for you.

It’s that understanding of audience expectations that Cregger has always played so well with and it’s why Resident Evil is not only a fantastic, fun time at the movies but a truly remarkable piece of pop culture iconongraphy. It’s a flick that actually knows why we play games in the first place, and understands their appeal on a core level; it’s about the thrill, the slow descent into something unknown, making sure you have the equipment intact and ready to go before a big boss fight. And while Resident Evil ends in a classic Cregger rug pull as to what the movie is actually about on a story level, it’s committed to that feeling throughout and never loses sight of itself for a quick fanservice buck even if those looking for fanservice will most certainly be served.

Easy to say, but Resident Evil is a landmark in the making and the kind of adaptation that will likely influence the genre going forward for years and years to come. And while it’s hard to say if we will ever see something like this quite again, Cregger’s Resident Evil is such a singular, successful vision of itself that I wouldn’t have it any other way. One of the year’s best.