All right, guys. So, I just got out of watching Zack Kger’s Resident Evil. And obviously, there’s been a bit of negativity from gamers going into this movie before it even came out because he’s not adapting a specific Resident Evil game. But, he’s been pretty upfront about the fact that he wasn’t trying to simply remake one of the games. He wanted to translate the experience of Resident Evil into a movie. And I’ve honestly been on board with that since the jump.
To me, I looked at it like, what if somebody made their own post game within the Resident Evil world, except instead of making it as a post game story, they told it as a movie story. That was at least my perception going in. And I only learned moments before the film started that it’s only like 90 minutes long. The movie’s pretty short. So, with that, I’ll I’ll be short. I’ll get straight to the point here.
I love the hell out of this movie. I thought it was an absolute blast. If you want just a short nittygritty version, Zack Kger has done it again. Austin Abrams is perfect. And this really does make you feel like you’re one of the gamers inside of this world without ever making you feel like you should just be playing the game instead. That was probably the one concern I could understand having beforehand because if you go too far trying to replicate what playing a game feels like, eventually you could just start thinking, why am I watching this? I could just be playing Resident Evil instead. And that never gave me this feeling. it it perfectly encompasses what it feels like where you don’t know what the you’re doing and you’re stressed the whole time that you’re about to get killed.
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And also, Austin Abrams, I’m going to talk about him some more. Uh, he’s perfect in this movie. It becomes apparent pretty quick that he’s our audience cipher. He’s our ey line. He’s our avatar, if you will. He’s honestly reminding me of me when I’m like really up at a game and doing terribly, but then slowly getting a little bit better the longer I keep playing. He’s not some badass action hero. He’s just a regular Joe who isn’t particularly great at combat and has really shitty luck. And there’s a lot of him muttering to himself and talking to himself through situations, panicking and trying to figure out what the hell he’s supposed to do next. And like even when he interacts with other people, you root for him because he just feels incredibly real and relatable.
But at the same time, it doesn’t only feel like a blank post game avatar. There’s an actual character here. His name is Brian, and he has a very simple mission. He has a package that he needs to deliver into Raccoon City. Deliver the package. That’s the goddamn objective. No matter how insane everything gets, eventually the story always brings you back to this dude has to figure out how to deliver this package. And along the way, it feels like he’s moving through different levels. Every new environment introduces some new problem, some new obstacle, some new horrible thing that he has to survive. But he’s also got a personal storyline, a vibe of his girlfriend and something they’re going through together. So the movie gives you just enough emotional things that you’re connected to so that way it’s beyond simply wanting to see whether or not he survives. And Austin Abrams, he had that scene stealing performance and weapons, but this is a star turning performance. Holy is he good in this movie.
And the biggest thing that Zack Kger, I think, nails is the actual experience of being inside this world. Now, full disclosure, I’ve never actually completed a Resident Evil game. I don’t want to be the guy speaking on behalf of the hardcore Resident Evil gamers. I played a lot of the first Resident Evil when I was younger when they re-released it on Gamecube, but I I don’t think I ever finished it. I played a lot of Resident Evil 4 and I just never finished it for some reason. Same thing with six. And I’ve dabbled in several of the others and watched plenty of gameplay, but I I haven’t played a lot of the newer ones. I did recently play all of Outlast, if that counts for something, and and both of the Last of Us games, which you know, something akin to Resident Evil in terms of survival, infection, resource management, navigating environments where you’re constantly trying to figure out what danger is around the corner. And that feeling is absolutely here.
The resource management is a huge part of it. You’re on this terrifying journey from point A to point B where Brian knows he has to keep moving even when he doesn’t want to. Ammunition, it’s limited. healing healing resources matter, weapons matter, and increasingly terrible things keep waiting for him the further he goes. It it captures that reluctance you get in a survival horror game where you know like, okay, I got to go through that door. I have to walk down that hallway. I have to enter that room, but you really don’t want to. And what’s impressive is that in a game, you are making those choices. It’s it’s you who’s figuring out the puzzle and you’re deciding where to go. You’re choosing whether to use the ammo or not. Here, you’re obviously not controlling Brian, but because the movie locks you so heavily into his perspective, it somehow makes you feel like you’re problem solving with him, like you’re making choices with him.
And it isn’t just like resource management that makes it feel like Resident Evil. It’s it’s the environment. It’s the creature design. It’s the camera work. It’s the tension. It’s the it’s the sound design. And there are these moments where the sound itself directs your attention. you you hear something and your eyes start searching the frame along with Brian and and that’s such a post game sensation and Kger really knows how to manipulate that. Like there there’s also something I really liked about how long the movie waits before you actually get the the Resident Evil title card. I’m not going to spoil what what leads into it, but by the time that title card hits, it feels earned.
And that’s also where I really felt like Zack Kger, like the movie fully is is just coming to life so early on because one thing he’s really good at is giving personality to basically every character you meet. Even somebody who might only be around briefly gets something. They get a personality or or like a specific weird behavior, even a joke. They get something something memorable that makes them feel like an actual person rather than an NPC who exists solely to move Brian on to the next part of the plot. And that’s very Zack Kger, at least to me. And the movie plays around with what you think you understand about Resident Evil or or what you do know about Resident Evil. So, without spoiling anything, we’re not necessarily walking to this expecting, okay, this is just going to be a zombie movie, cuz it definitely goes places. And if you’ve seen the advertising, there’s that image they’ve been using of the door with the different body parts coming through it. I I won’t explain what what that is, but that is so much more than just a cool image from one scene. that becomes a pretty significant element in the movie. And the way they the you they use it feels so much like something you would encounter in a post game is all I’ll say. And I and I was really happy with that.
And the movie and embraces action. It’s cool. And I I feel like they earn every kill that happens cuz Brian doesn’t suddenly transform into John Wick or something like that. There’s progression. You watch him gradually become better at surviving because he has to and become more desperate throughout the journey. And Kger shoots all this in a way where the camera makes you unconsciously feel the game. There’s like first-person point of view, there’s third person perspective, there’s more traditional cinematic coverage, but he never locks himself into this one gimmick because especially first-person shots, those are the ones that are obviously going to immediately make you think, oh, post game. But if you do that for most of the runtime, eventually become hyper aware of what the movie is doing. And Greger seems to understand exactly when to use it and when to pull away from it. He finds a way to evoke playing a game without the movie ceasing to behave like a movie, if that makes sense.
And that’s probably the biggest accomplishment of this whole thing because compared to Barbarian or Weapons, this is easily KGER’s most straightforward movie. These movies, I mean, those movies both have very unusual structures. There are like a million things you can dissect. You can make theories. You can do breakdown posts. That’s what like heavy spoilers and new rock stars are for. Uh, but this movie Resident Evil, even though that this game has a lot of lore, the movies, this exists very different. This is a straightforward thrill ride. You lock on a one protagonist. You get from point A to point B. You put your foot on the gas and basically you don’t take it off until the movie ends. There’s a relentlessness to it. And the movie is I mean, if you’ve seen Barbarian Weapons, not total surprise, but the movie’s funny, but I never thought it became so funny that the humor started undercutting the horror.
Overall, I’d call the movie scary fun. I want to call it terrifying, but there were absolutely moments where people in my theater were definitely screaming their heads off. And the suspense of it constantly kept me locked in because it’s it’s like a very physical movie, too. It’s it’s very dirty. I love the snow. I love the cold atmosphere. There’s some really cool gore here and there. There’s some good violence. There are some surprise actors who show up, too. I don’t want to mislead anyone into thinking it’s like Resident Evil character cameos or game cameos or maybe I actually don’t know maybe they are. I just met more actors where I went, “Oh I didn’t know you were in this movie.” There were several moments like that and I really want to shout out the score too. I think score is something actually that gets overlooked when people talk about post games and immersion and music contributes so much to the gameplay experience often tells you like when you’re safe. It tells you when something is wrong. It builds dread before you even necessarily understand what you should be afraid of. And I felt like this movie really understood that as part of translating the experience.
Now, I do have like some criticisms. They’re minor to the overall experience. The first one is the CGI. There definitely moments where it it’s like, okay, I’m clearly looking at a a computer generated thing. And horror is probably one of those genres where I’m most sensitive to that because the second I can tell that something threatening the character CG becomes hard for me to be, you know, like actually scared of it. And ironically, a lot of the scariest things in this movie are the things that appear to rely the least on obvious CGI. And the more physical and tangible everything feels, the more effective the horror becomes, right? That’s basic horror.
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There’s also an unavoidable limitation that comes from locking us almost entirely on to Brian because once you realize early in the movie that he is the protagonist, part of your brain naturally starts going, “Okay, if this guy dies, it probably isn’t happening 20 minutes into this movie. It’s just like movie logic.” So, every once in a while, I would become aware of that. I think he’s probably making it through this section because we’re nowhere near the ending. It’s not about the ending. It’s about the journey, though. the you know it’s because I’ve watched a certain amount of movies sometimes that part of my brain kicks in and it pulls me slightly outside of the experience but when I wasn’t having that thought I was completely reeled back into the suspense because the film making is constantly fun and constantly moving and my only like tiny criticism is I actually like the ending.
I really like the ending. I like the concept of it. I like the choice that Kger makes. I even like the the scenes pretty much. I just think it concludes a little faster than I wanted it to. Understand the entire movie is designed to be this ride. It’s like 90 minutes. It’s moving. It’s relentless. It’s gas on the pedal. But but once we get into the final situation, I think they could have simmered in the tension a little longer. I just wanted a little more time to sit inside of the scenario before everything wrapped up.
But those are my main issues. Like they’re not really that major for me. Overall, I had such a good time with this one, guys. Uh, I think Austin Abrams again absolutely nails it. Turns him into a movie star. Zack Greger found a genuinely clever way of adapting Resident Evil without just recreating one of the games. Honors what this type of game feels like. And more than anything, I really want Zack Greger to make another movie in this world. I know I got a flack leading into this one, but I hope that the the reception of this makes him want to come back because this felt like an experience. And if you’re somebody who’s been on the fence because this isn’t an adaptation of one of the games directly, I really hope you give it a shot and judge what Kger actually chose to make because I thought it was a blast. For me, this is at minimum a 9 out of 10.
What did you guys think about it? Would you want Zack Creger to continue on? If there’s another director you want to take part in the franchise, put it down in the comments. Thank you to our friends at DeBucks. See you guys soon.
