Resident Evil (2002)

The best film in the Resident Evil franchise. I want to lead with that, because everything that follows needs to be understood in context. This is the high watermark of a series that goes on to get progressively more unhinged and, frankly, more tiresome with each entry. If you've read my thoughts on Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) or Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), you'll know exactly where the sequels end up. So yes, this one wins by default to some extent. But it's a genuine win, even if it's a scrappy one.

Here's the thing though: it's not actually a good zombie film. And it's not a good game adaptation either. Those are two separate problems, and the film more or less fails at both while somehow remaining watchable. If you know the games, you know what they feel like: tight corridors, creeping dread, inventory management, the horrible suspense of not knowing what's around the next corner. That atmosphere is almost entirely absent here. What we get instead is a slick, loud, action-heavy romp through an underground facility, more interested in looking cool than in making your skin crawl.

And then there's the story I keep coming back to whenever this film comes up: apparently George Romero was approached to direct, and turned it down because it wasn't his story to tell. I have enormous respect for that decision. The man knew his own voice and wasn't willing to compromise it for a franchise job. But God, I wish he'd taken it on. Can you imagine what Romero would have done with this material? The social commentary, the genuine horror, the weight that his zombie films carry? It would have been a completely different beast. Instead, what we got is competent, energetic and almost entirely disposable.

Paul W.S. Anderson directs with the subtlety of someone who has never met subtlety, but he does keep things moving. The pacing is relentless, the action sequences are put together with a certain brutish confidence, and Milla Jovovich holds the whole thing together through sheer screen presence. There's a sequence involving laser grid corridors that lodged itself in my brain when I first saw it, and it still holds up as a piece of pure kinetic filmmaking. It doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it for more than thirty seconds, but you're not supposed to think about it. That's sort of the deal this film makes with you from the opening scene.

What I mean is: this is turn-your-brain-off cinema, and it knows it. When a film is self-aware enough about what it is, you can meet it there. I'm not going to sit here and pretend I was bored. I wasn't. I had a decent enough time. But decent enough time and genuinely good film are not the same thing, and I think it's worth being honest about that distinction. There's no real tension, no real dread, none of the things that make zombie horror actually work. The characters are thinly drawn. The plot is functional at best.

What saves it, and what keeps it ahead of everything that follows in the series, is a certain scrappy energy and the fact that it hasn't yet collapsed under the weight of its own increasingly absurd mythology. It's a contained story, more or less. It doesn't ask too much of itself, which means it fails less spectacularly than the later entries do when they aim higher and miss by miles. Check my review of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) if you want to see where ambition and incoherence eventually collide in this franchise.

Three stars. Better than average, not as good as it could have been with a different hand on the wheel. Worth a watch on a Friday night with snacks and no expectations. Just don't go in looking for the games you loved. That film, sadly, never got made.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 2002  | Watched: 2025-07-02

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
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Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: fuboTV
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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Paul W. S. Anderson: Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) · Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) · Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) · Death Race (2008)
More with Milla Jovovich: Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) · Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) · Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) · The Fourth Kind (2009)
More from Canada: History of the World in Three Minutes Flat (1980) · Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) · Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) · Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More horror: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Viy (1967) · Nightmare City (1980) · Angst (1983)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)