The very first good Resident Evil movie is just a bit better than good, lean and clever and full of surprises, with a welcome goofball hero that is the opposite of the tough survivor Alice.
Bryan (Austin Abrams) works as a courier, carrying organs from one hospital to another for transplant patients. On a dark, snowy night, he makes a delivery and intends to get right back home to his girlfriend, with whom he's in the middle of a serious discussion about their future together.
Before he can do that, he's offered another delivery at double pay, which he can't turn down. It involves a trip through the snow to Raccoon City General. On the road, in the dark, a woman steps out in front of his car.
He investigates and finds her still moving, and, given that there is no cell reception, he decides to take her with him. Thus begins a night full of bloody carnage and the unexpected as Bryan battles obstacle after obstacle on his way to his final destination.
Hot off of his Oscar-winning Weapons, director and co-writer Zach Cregger probably won't be garnering any awards for Resident Evil, but he doesn't need to when the movie is this much shocking, astonishing fun. The new movie — the eighth in the series — has been likened to Mad Max for its stripped-down quality, its lone hero, and its plot that is solely about getting from point A to point B.
At one point, Bryan winds up having to abandon his shoes, not dissimilar to John McClane's dilemma in Die Hard. He's also comically bad with guns, claiming that his only experience comes from playing video games. The screenplay continually invents unexpected new hurdles for Bryan including one in which he uses a ladder as a weapon and only realizes a few beats later that he needed said ladder to escape.
The movie is so keenly-crafted in its balance of humor and horror that we genuinely don't know which to expect: a gag or gore. It also pays tribute to John Carpenter's The Thing with its throbbing synthesizer score and its creepy, icky monster design.
The only drawback with the movie is that, by the end, an emphasis was clearly placed on profits, i.e. a franchise, and so the character arc is sacrificed for a chance to make a sequel (or several).
That's frustrating, but until then, Resident Evil is a toothsome horror pic for those that enjoy rambunctious, irreverent horror, Evil Dead-style.
