Your Ultimate Guide To RESIDENT EVIL

I want to tell you about Resident Evil. Buckle up.

The Movies

Resident Evil is the greatest film series nobody cares about. It is ostensibly “based on” Capcom’s hit video game franchise, but I would say it’s more, “once in the same room as.” While the Resident Evil games vacillate between survival horror and action horror, the Resident Evil films plant themselves firmly in the camp of straight-up action, utilizing Capcom’s iconic zombie horror as more of a suggestion. The characters, settings, and plot beats are suggestions as well, meaning these films are essentially useless as fanservice. The movies barely appeal to people who play the games, and the general public deems them “critically reviled,” so who is Resident Evil meant for?

No one, apparently. When I ask folks about these movies, I receive glowing reviews such as “I think I saw one of them in theaters,” and “isn’t that the one with the laser hallway?” Despite spanning fourteen years and grossing over a billion dollars, most people regard the series as a vast cultural shrug, or some collective hallucination. You might remember posters of gun-toting Milla Jovovich at the AMC or Cinemark, or maybe you caught a trailer for one of the latter installments. If you’re one of the lucky few who caught them all in theaters, I salute you. The rest of us, myself included, seem to have written them off. 

That’s a shame, because Resident Evil constitutes a life-changing 9.7 hour cinematic masterpiece; a filmic journey so staggeringly rockheaded and aggressively artless that it totally redefines cinema. Beginning with the serviceable Resident Evil and ending on the nigh-unwatchable Final Chapter, the franchise morphs from substandard sci-fi action fare into something completely uncategorizable. Resident Evil becomes simultaneously unbelievable and pedestrian; both generic and wholly unique. It is a saga of recursion, of directorial obsession, and of one man’s love for his wife. The films are incompetent, they are baffling, and they are hysterical. There is so, so much to say, but shortly put, they are a must-watch. That said, where did they come from?

The Players

These movies are the ultimate brainchild of Mortal Kombat and Event Horizon director Paul W.S. Anderson, and an alleged passion project. Legend has it Anderson locked himself away for four weeks to play the first three Resident Evil games, and emerged obsessed and desperate to refashion them for the silver screen. He would go on to write all six films, produce five, and direct four. He is the conductor, the puppet master, and the central voice. Resident Evil is his opus; his Dekalog, his Three Colours. It is a series of movies so inextricably linked to the ideas of one man that they become a study in auteur theory; a compilation of ideas and choices so constantly perplexing that they loop around to a genius level of consistency and cohesion. If we judge directors by their grasp on personal style, Anderson is a legitimate master.

I could talk about Paul all day, but every artist needs his muse. Thus, we turn to Milla Jovovich, central star of Resident Evil and wife of Paul W.S. Anderson. For better or worse, Resident Evil is her opus as well. She is the face of the franchise, the voice of its voice, and perhaps the only stable element of all six films. Even as the franchise morphs, swerves, and falls apart around her, she carries these movies with an astounding level of commitment. I have to assume her and Paul are just having fun with it - but we’ll get to that. Jovovich is certainly the “best” element of the franchise, and it’s a shame she hasn’t done much else on this level. But when you’ve got an artistic statement as bold as Resident Evil, what else do you need?

Anderson and Jovovich are far and above the most important elements of Resident Evil’s bizarre trajectory; a husband and wife powerful and confident enough to hijack a video game film franchise and mold it into a six film declaration of love. The two met on the set of Resident Evil, were engaged “on and off” for years, and finally married in 2009. With this in mind, it’s hard not to consider the films an implicit partnership. Anderson gets to write cool shit for his wife, and Jovovich gets to do that cool shit. They get paid millions of dollars, and frankly, don’t seem to care how “actually good” the movies are. This “fuck it” approach is the easiest way to suss out Resident Evil as a whole, so let’s get into it.

Resident Evil (2002)

Do you enjoy Quake, Trent Reznor, and the original Hot Topic storefront design? Then you’ll love Resident Evil! Birthed in the cultural fallout of The Matrix, Resident Evil reimagines Capcom’s methodical horror experience with bargain bin Nine Inch Nails and slow-mo bullet sequences. We follow amnesiac Alice (Jovovich) as she awakens inside a very empty mansion - but watch out! Not everything is as it seems. A strike team arrives, and Alice learns she’s a former employee of the Umbrella Corporation, placed to guard a secret facility called “The Hive.” The team descends into The Hive to battle an evil AI and shut down an outbreak of the “T-virus” - but will anyone make it out alive?

This first outing is maybe the closest Resident Evil ever gets to “a real movie.” There’s a halfway discernible plot with a distinct cast, and it’s got some muddled message about corporate responsibility. Michelle Rodriguez stars, making her one of four people in all six of these movies with an outside career. There’s real songs on the soundtrack, the action is decent, and there’s even a color palette! In comparison to the coming absurdity, Resident Evil seems genteel. It’s very humorous, but it still feels like it was made on planet Earth, and it’s got a truly charming sense of time and place. What Resident Evil thinks is cool is whatever teenage boys in the late ‘90s/early ‘00s thought was cool, a design decision carried through the whole franchise.

What’s most important about Resident Evil is that, right off the bat, it establishes the lion’s share of motifs which Anderson sinks his teeth into for six entire films. The exposition dump at the film’s beginning carries through every movie, albeit delivered by Milla Jovovich. There’s a ton of weirdo user interface graphics, such as a camera with what my friend called an “alive meter” to monitor mortality in a room. The Resident Evil films are obsessed with this method of visual information, with all films literally spelling out exposition through monitors and other mechanical viewpoints. Other recurrent touches are massive 3D grid maps of facilities, sequences of Alice waking up, and of course, the laser hallway scene so iconic they put a variation of it in almost every film.

Another touch are the inexplicable Alice in Wonderland references, with main character Alice squaring off against The Hive’s evil AI: The Red Queen. We also get a scene of T-virus testing on a white rabbit - get it? She’s down the rabbit hole, dude! Woah! The nods feel super goofy in a movie that’s otherwise meant for cool cybergoths, but then again, this was two years after American McGee’s Alice. They also, ostensibly, establish reality and unreality as a running theme in the Resident Evil movies, something Anderson constantly references for, hilariously, absolutely zero payoff.

I don’t wanna linger on this installment, but I’ll mention that every line in Resident Evil feels like a first take. The costumes are wildly out of sync with the rest of the design, and every character moves like a total alien. The first shot of this film is absolutely cackle-inducing, with the most absurd zoom in movie history. The conclusion is protracted and endless, but it gets there. Overall, Resident Evil is fine. It’s fun, and it would still be a good “night with friends” movie even if the rest of the franchise hadn’t materialized. Milla Jovovich spends most of the movie in a red dress with combat boots and kills a zombie with her thighs. She roundhouse kicks a dog! Come on.

Resident Evil nearly ended up in development hell, with producers Constantin Film scuttling at least three versions before Anderson’s hit the big screen. The most notable of these involves George A. Romero himself, who wrote several drafts before being canned. The film would’ve been a closer adaptation to the original game, with Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine as main characters. Allegedly, this version would’ve been rated NC-17, leading the producers to balk at Romero’s involvement. Prior to this, however, the daddy of the dead directed a Japanese commercial for Resident Evil 2 (1998), which brings us to…...

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)

More action! More plot! More swords! It’s time for Resident Evil: Apocalypse, a film with substantially less industrial music, but substantially more batshittery. Anderson dipped directorial duties this time around to make Aliens vs. Predator, but remains a producer and the sole writing credit. Instead we get Alexander Witt, who had previously been a second unit director on The X-Files: Fight the Future and Gladiator. Witt’s major contribution to Resident Evil is stripping every color from the palette except blue, exclusively painting Anderson’s world with the cool side of the spectrum.

Don’t get it twisted: Apocalypse is still distinctly Anderson’s world. His sequel script is more ambitious, and much less focused, but it carries all of his obsessions. It’s arguably the most “game faithful” of all six films, taking cues from Resident Evil 2 and 3, but many consider it to be the worst of the franchise. Having seen Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, I disagree. The film plods with exposition bloat, and Resident Evil’s clanging nu-metal has been exchanged for standard sonic cinema fare, but the action sequences in Apocalypse are completely off the rails. Add some absurd performances, throw in awful costumes, and you got yourself a movie, baby!

After the obligatory recap, Apocalypse finds the T-virus spreading through Raccoon City. We meet virus creator Charles Ashford and his constantly imperiled daughter, Angela. Sienna Guillory shows up as Jill Valentine, beginning what will end as the franchise’s worst performance when Retribution rolls around. Alice wakes up, repeats her hospital escape, builds a crew, and hits the town. Plotlines converge and everyone tries to escape the city, but not before Alice and company are roped into rescuing Angela. Can they manage to save her, while avoiding Umbrella’s greatest weapon yet?

The bad news is that Apocalypse is a chore to follow, but the good news is that it’s the last Resident Evil film with a semblance of narrative. Not that the plot matters, since the main draws here are big game names, such as Jill Valentine and Nemesis. Nemesis, in particular, is done extremely dirty. The hulking 7’3” leatherbound superweapon is reduced to a 5’11” dude in a latex Spirit Halloween costume, complete with a weepy Frankenstein’s monster moment. That being said, the number one rule of the Resident Evil films is not to worry about the source material. I don’t think Nemesis ever swung a sword in the games, or had tactical UI combat vision.

Said sword fight is only one of many bananas action sequences which define Apocalypse. All known laws of physics and thermodynamics are broken over the film’s 93 minutes, including, but not limited to, Alice surviving a missile hit by rolling into a canvas laundry cart. Most films require suspension of disbelief, but Apocalypse asks for a total levitation. It's impossible not to cackle when Alice and Angela survive a colossal pillar of flame by ducking beneath a tinfoil fire blanket, or bust a gut when Alice runs straight down a building. It's a shame the production team was still putting in effort during Apocalypse - it might've been one of the best films if it took itself a little less seriously.

Instead, we spend an hour and a half tailing an incomprehensible plot with a forgettable ensemble and Anderson’s fetish for screens and surveillance on full blast. The ending is equally inscrutable, with Alice captured by Umbrella, shot up with T-virus, and…...released? Because she's “Project Alice,” and will develop psychic powers to become a weapon? I'm not sure. There's a conspiracy at work here, with Anderson’s examination of corporate distrust being the most generous read possible. If that sounds interesting, you may as well forget it. Apocalypse is the last film to take place in something resembling human society, so get ready for the real apocalypse.

Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)

If you can visualize a crossover between Mad Max: Fury Road and Day of the Dead, you’re on the right track. Reduce the overall quality by 85% and add terrible CGI bird effects to achieve Resident Evil: Extinction, the most “objectively competent” of all six films. Helmed by prolific music video director Russell Mulcahy, the film feels assured and cohesive. The production design is still rancid, but you can tell from Extinction’s evocative opening that someone behind the camera knew how to assemble an image. Too bad the script is nonexistent.

Anderson fires on both empty barrels for this film; writing a movie which is packed with idiocy despite having no plot whatsoever. Five years after the T-virus, most of America has turned to a desert wasteland. Alice, somehow separated from her ride-or-die Apocalypse gang, finds evidence of Arcadia, a virus-free sanctuary in Alaska. She begins a pilgrimage, develops psychic powers, and meets up with her old crew. This ragtag company of Mad Max cosplayers heads through Las Vegas to reach Alaska, coming into conflict with zombie birds and Dr. Isaacs, the head of “Project Alice.” Can Alice defend these survivors while uncovering the truth about herself?

If you held a gun to my head, I couldn't tell you Extinction’s major plot beats. I've seen it three times. It is a movie where people move from one place to another, and things happen to them. The film introduces game names Claire Redfield, Carlos Oliveira, and most importantly, Albert Wesker. Carlos is never relevant again. Claire putters around in two more movies, and Albert becomes the absolute showstopper of Resident Evil’s latter half. He doesn't get much to do in Extinction, but that's fine. The dude who plays him here is terrible and was likely found on Craigslist, much like whoever they pulled to do costume design and CGI.

The biggest damnation against Extinction is that it's utterly forgettable. Most of it is competent, if not a little substandard. That means there's no unbelievable action scenes, no totally bananas performances, no major gaffes every eight minutes. It's certainly quirky: a fight against zombie birds is a pivotal scene, Vegas is buried under a mile of sand, and there's a character named K-Mart. It's funny, but it's nothing you couldn't catch on any SyFy original movie. Even Alice’s mind powers are played totally straight here, only becoming humorous when later films add or remove them as it becomes convenient for the plot.

Extinction is, essentially, the turning point for Resident Evil. It is a midpoint between the ostensible plot threads of the first two films and the total mashed potato nonsense of the final three. It stops ripping off The Matrix and starts ripping off movies that aren't The Matrix, a common theme going forward. Alice transitions from cool action heroine to cool apocalypse savior, a shepherd role brought full circle in Final Chapter. Most importantly, it's the last film made prior to the advent of 3D CG HD 4K movie trash, a trend which has a massive impact on the look and style of the franchise going forward.

Extinction concludes with Alice uncovering a silo of her Project Alice clones, vowing to team them up and destroy Umbrella once and for all. In the grand scheme of the franchise, there’s a theme emerging. Anderson places Alice in the same scenarios through all three movies, obsessing over her amnesiac awakening, obsessing with the image of her eye in the first moments of lucidity. He makes her a recursive character; someone fated to live out the same scenarios over and over in different circumstances. The addition of clones is his most direct method of addressing these ideas, but it doesn't really matter. As we see in Afterlife, Anderson is more concerned with making a ton of copies of his wife shoot guns in catsuits because it looks cool. In his defense, it absolutely whips ass.

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

Resident Evil: Afterlife is installment number one in the franchise’s secret duology; a double-feature so titanically bonkers and radically unbelievable that it redefines what is possible in film. The minute Afterlife begins, it is clear the previous three films are nothing but foreplay; three obligatory bricks in the Tower of Babel towards a 193 minute, two-headed fit of cinematic ecstasy. After eight years, Paul W.S. Anderson is finally back in the director’s chair, with a whole toybox of HD cameras and 3D gimmick capabilities. What he unleashes here and in Retribution is so bewildering and so astounding that I could talk about it for a thousand years.

Making good on her promise at Extinction’s conclusion, Alice and her clones invade Umbrella headquarters to take down Wesker. He narrowly escapes, but injects Alice with a vaccine that eliminates her psychic powers. From here, Alice tracks down Arcadia, only to find empty land and a brainwashed Claire Redfield. She rescues Claire and heads towards Los Angeles, where she lands at a survivor encampment inside a prison. Here, she learns the haven of Arcadia is not a town, but a ship. Can Alice, Claire, and the other survivors make it to Arcadia before zombies close in?

This is the essential plot of Afterlife, but I could say anything here and it wouldn't really matter. Nothing happens in Afterlife, and you don't watch it for the plot. You watch it for the absolutely unhinged opening of Alice and her clones attacking Umbrella, which is one of the most bananas sequences I've ever seen on film. You watch it to soak in the inscrutable prison set design, covered wall to wall with hundreds of torches. You watch for any one of the thousand little baffling moments that continually unfold in fractals, constantly reminding you that Afterlife may not have been made by human beings.

You definitely watch Afterlife for the recast Shawn Roberts as Albert Wesker, who knows exactly what kind of movie he's starring in. He chews every scene so methodically you can see the juice running down his chin, to say nothing of his bodysuit or hair or the inexplicable power stances he adopts throughout. His shit-eating delivery is a revelation every moment he appears in Afterlife and Retribution, and they wouldn't be nearly as fun without him. Even in a franchise filled with stilted weirdos, Roberts is totally unique as Wesker. This is a man who was given a role and totally ran away with it.

He's contrasted by Prison Break star Wentworth Miller as Chris Redfield, a man grumbling through most of his lines. Chris wears the jumpsuit from a Party City Michael Myers costume, and is introduced trapped inside a Hannibal Lecter plexiglass cube for no other reason than that it looks cool. He leads the survivors to Arcadia and to a confrontation with Wesker, culminating in a fight scene the stuff of middle school nu-metal AMV legend. He establishes himself as an essential hero of the franchise, and is promptly never seen again.

What I've said here is barely scratching the surface. Hell, it’s barely even picking up the implement to scratch the surface. I haven't mentioned the freeze frame plane crash, Alice’s coin shotguns, the big zombie monster shower fight scene, a basketball player doing a dunk to grab Alice’s prop plane, the endless 3D tricks, the rescue of K-Mart, and on and on and on. Anderson gives Jovovich a lot of cool shit to do here, but it's nothing compared to what comes next. Afterlife’s cliffhanger finds Arcadia under attack by Umbrella forces, with a brainwashed Jill Valentine leading the charge. What happens next is earth-shaking cinema.

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

I told you I want to tell you about Resident Evil. That was a lie. I only want to tell you about Resident Evil: Retribution.

Picking up the exact second Afterlife concludes, Retribution unfurls into a monument of filmic stupidity so staggering that it completely eclipses the previous four films. Its 96 minutes are so utterly bugfucking absurd that Retribution remains one of the only movies I get giddy just thinking about. After ten years of throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks in this franchise, Anderson finally synthesizes his trashterpiece. It is the culmination of every theme he's ever addressed — unreality, surveillance, corporate distrust, duality, femininity, the whole package. It is everything at once, it is completely up its own ass, it is his Mulholland Drive or Metal Gear Solid 4. It is a trainwreck, and every moment absolutely rules.

We start with the resolution of Afterlife’s boat assault. The sequence plays in reverse, we get a massive franchise recap, and then the sequence plays a second time, forwards. Alice is captured and contained in yet another Umbrella testing facility, this one deep under Russian ice. Retribution follows her escape through the complex, moving through Umbrella’s outbreak simulations of real-world locations. Along the way she meets clones, old friends, new friends, shoddy game references, stolen plot beats from Aliens, and more. It all concludes with the franchise’s most unhinged fight scene, and a cliffhanger so massive and so unbelievable that Final Chapter resolved it by completely ignoring it.

The biggest problem with Retribution is that you have to spoil the film to talk about it, and this is not a movie I want to spoil. If you’ve never seen it, Retribution will leave you slack-jawed and cackling. Assuming I’ve gotten you on board with watching all six of these garbage movies, you will be astounded. Even if you just watch Afterlife and Retribution, you will walk away from this film a different person. Anderson summons every molecule of his filmmaking ability to deliver an experience that is both everything and nothing, addressing every major theme he’s ever touched in Resident Evil without actually saying anything at all. In Retribution, Anderson masters the art form of early 2010s HD 3D popcorn movie slop, and it’s so, so good.

If you’ve read this entire article and still aren’t sold, let me tempt you. Sienna Guillory returns as Jill, barking out what is not only the gut-bustingly worst performance in all of Resident Evil, but possibly in movies as a whole. Li Bingbing turns up in Ada Wong’s first film appearance, but every single line of her dialogue is ADR from Ada’s game actress. The Russian submarine pen hiding the Umbrella facility is plastered in enough hammers and sickles to make Rocky IV feel subtle. Zombies drive cars, Alice instantaneously learns sign language, and moments from Afterlife are shamelessly recycled. At one point, bullets fly through a window with any breakage effects. When this is pointed out to Anderson in the director’s commentary, he remarks that his co-host is paying more attention than he ever did.

His laissez faire attitude absolutely sets the scene for Retribution, which Anderson stuffs full of whatever he happens to think is cool. The various real-world simulations are not only a bald-faced grab for the international market, but an excuse for Anderson to put shit like sleek James Bond car chases and suburban turmoil in his post-apocalypse movie. The “I do what I want” approach is so rockheaded and upfront that it’s absolutely genius; Retribution challenges norms of what’s possible in a zombie movie without ever actually meaning to. Did Romero put a submarine brawl in Dawn of the Dead? Were there any people in latex catsuits double-wielding machine guns in The Walking Dead? I don’t think so.

Not that Retribution is really a zombie movie in the first place. At this point, the flesh-eaters are an afterthought; essentially just set dressing for Anderson’s weirdo saga of clones and corporations. Final Chapter picks up with the T-virus terrors a bit more, but not before Retribution squeezes in one of the most hilarious conclusions in cinematic history. I refuse to spoil the final few minutes of this film, but if you’ve got a trash-poisoned brain like me, you will lose your mind. All I can say is that Albert Wesker shows up in what is, no bullshit, the funniest and most haunting single shot in all 582 minutes of this nonsense. I think about it almost every day, and you will too. Please, please, please get some friends together and watch this movie.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

Final Chapter was the only Resident Evil movie I saw in theaters, and I saw it alone. Not just personally alone, but totally alone. I drove to a south Austin AMC at 11 AM on a Tuesday and sat, completely by myself, in a small theater of very fancy and very empty recliners. In retrospect, it was a fitting scenario for the worst and saddest Resident Evil. I knew Retribution would be a hard act to follow, but Final Chapter doesn’t even try. After five movies of total absurdity, of sheer incompetence tipping into complete hilarity, Final Chapter disappoints by being a total fucking chore to sit through.

To relate the plot of Final Chapter in a sane and readable way is sheer futility, even for a Resident Evil scholar such as myself. We kick off with a massive retcon of the T-virus lore, shredding Apocalypse’s Gordian Plot in favor of, uh, something equally incomprehensible. What’s important is that Dr. Isaacs, forgotten antagonist of Extinction, killed the virus’s creator and took his sickly daughter as a ward. In the present day, Alice awakens after the off-screen non-resolution of Retribution’s cliffhanger. Enlisted by the Red Queen, Alice must return to the abandoned Hive from the first film and find a vaccine to protect humanity. She sets off to save the world, and, yet again, for the fourth or fifth time, discover the truth about herself…...for real!

Along the way, she runs into enemies such as a clone of Dr. Isaacs, giant zombie bats, and the worst editing I’ve ever seen in my life. Final Chapter is incomprehensible, as in, literally visually incomprehensible. 90% of shots in the film are under three seconds, and every action sequence averages 200 cuts per second. I’ve seen this movie twice, and it’s nigh impossible to grok what’s happening for about 2/3rds of the runtime. Combined with the film’s aggressively drab visual palette and consistently dim lighting, it’s a miracle anyone’s visual cortex can register Final Chapter at all.

This overall dreariness is the heart of Final Chapter’s problem. None of the Resident Evil movies are “good,” but they’ve all got a goofy soul that completely vanishes from Final Chapter. The mood reads as if Anderson watched True Detective every day during the production process, or was going through a particularly turbulent moment in his life. Reading up on the film reveals a bevy of production problems, so perhaps that isn’t far off. Production was postponed following Jovovich’s second pregnancy, terminating the availability of most returning actors and forcing rewrites. Two major accidents occurred on set, one of them fatal. Whatever the reason actually was, Final Chapter comes across grim and rushed.

After five films of self-indulgent nonsense, this dreary last installment of Resident Evil reads as Anderson washing his hands of the franchise and getting it over with. It’s a strange feeling, especially considering the unadulterated joy of Retribution. There’s no comedy, there’s no big bang, there’s only an unwatchable Fury Road ripoff that resolves into an unwatchable slasher movie within the derelict Hive. Even Shawn Roberts “phones in” his Wesker performance, totally devoid of the bizarre vocal delivery and absurd physical blocking which defined the previous two films. In terms of narrative and tone, Final Chapter feels more like an epilogue or an addendum, a “necessary” piece of the story which is barely relevant to the preceding installments.

But then again, Resident Evil has a habit of totally ignoring what came before. Extinction has nothing to do with Apocalypse, and Afterlife totally jettisons the “psychic powers” storyline that two movies worked to establish. What we’re left with is the messy conclusion to a messy franchise, one that continually morphed and shifted as Anderson saw fit. Whatever happens in Final Chapter, it was the will of a writer-slash-director-slash-producer who shaped a video game spinoff in his own image. He concluded the franchise on whatever terms he wanted, and we simply have to accept it.

Somewhere along the line, I learned to accept the quirks and inconsistencies of Resident Evil as the inner machinations of a mind I will never understand. Anderson’s brain operates off an insect logic which is both confident and consistent, but so alien we can never hope to understand it. He is a man allowed and encouraged to tap into the teen boy cortex of his brain, and he does so by marrying those urges to a style of filmmaking so pedestrian that it defies analysis. He partnered up with Milla Jovovich and made millions of dollars by turning a video game into six totally bananas movies - wouldn’t you do the same? I would, and I wouldn’t care how good those movies really were. God bless. It’s Paul W.S. Anderson’s world, and we’re just living in it.