I walked into this movie solely because my best friend said, “Hey, Resident Evil is out. We should go see.” Because we had nothing better to do, we went to go see this movie.
I was under the impression that I had to see previous Resident Evil movies in order to view this one. You don’t, and I’ll do you one better. Zach Cregger said he hadn’t seen any of the previous movies either.
Now, if you’re a person who reads opening credits like I do, then you might remember that Cregger directed The Barbarian, and my personal favorite comedy, Weapons.
Cregger’s Resident Evil centers on a solo story surrounding Bryan, and boy did Bryan get on my last nerve! We’ll get to that in a second. Bryan is a medical courier, and seems like a nice guy but I wonder who hired him. On one hand, he seems like he’s there for the money, and on the other hand, he seems like he’s really does care about the result of the work that he’s doing. There’s also this subplot of him and his lady, Melissa, maybe having a baby. I think she’s pregnant and they’re having a conversation about whether to keep the baby or not. There was no reason to have this subplot. I think it was supposed to give him someone outside of this mess to connect to, but we don’t care!
Anywho, he’s dropping off a heart, a lung, a liver…some needed body part to a hospital. While he’s leaving, another staff member at the hospital stops him to ask if he wants another courier job. It pays double but it’s in the mountains and he has to have chains and snow tires. He lies so he can get the job. Chaos ensues from there.
Well, really chaos ensues once he hits a lady who walked into the street but he was on the phone with his girlfriend and he didn’t have chains on his tires. So, yeah, I didn’t have much faith in him.
What this movie did well was make it feel like I’m playing a video game. My favorite video games are story-driven games. Those games that feel like part movie but also part video game, if that makes sense. There were first person angles like down the barrel of the shotgun and when he switched to the AK that felt like I was on my PlayStation at home.
Austin Abrams keeps the story and action moving. You may remember him as the druggie from Weapons. Loved that character. Glad we got to see more of him here. You can easily get bored if the main character doesn’t have anyone to play off of. He was able to hold his own the entire film, which is what you want for a movie like this because in a video game, it’s just like this.
I didn’t see The Barbarian, but I did seen Weapons. I really am not sure if I’m supposed to be talking to the screen as much as I do with Cregger’s movies. I also don’t know if I’m supposed to laugh as much as I do. Honestly, between this and Weapons, it feels like a comedy that happens to have horror elements in it. It doesn’t feel like a traditional horror comedy, which is great for Cregger. If he stays in this lane, I know what to expect, and I will keep coming back.
Here’s what irritated me. Before the movie started, my forever coworker, Nick, said on Instagram that Resident Evil was almost perfect. Obviously, at the time, I had no idea what he meant. After watching the film, I know exactly what he meant. In Weapons, we got the payoff we wanted. Here, not so much and I was disappointed. Now, it could lead to a sequel because there is so much more to be explored before the events of this movie and after. BUT AND HOWEVER, what happened with Bryan at the end was a big NO from me, dawg.
What did you think? Did the ending do it for you? Will there be a sequel? Am I supposed to laugh at Zach Cregger movies? Someone, please, answer that last one for me.
