Movie Review: Resident Evil

 

Michael's Movie Grade: A-

A superior horror movie. 

Rather than following the characters of the popular video game franchise, this movie places an original character into the world of the video games. Our main character is a medical courier who is hired to deliver a package to Racoon city. However, what seems to be a routine deliver soon turns into something more serious as he comes face to face with killer infected creatures.

This new main character is such a huge reason why this film works so well. He is not some brave or highly skilled hero. In fact, his attempts to use a gun to defend himself hardly ever end well. He is instead just an average guy and for much of the film, he is simply reacting how an average guy would to such creepy circumstances. Through this we get experience the horror as if we were there ourselves. This is perfect for this type of video game movie as it allows us to have a similar experience to playing the game, while still having its own cinematic identity. Helping is that this is simply a great character as well and not just an audience surrogate. He is flawed, often saying or doing the wrong thing (as is especially shown in a side story about his girlfriend being pregnant). However, he often has what he feels are good intentions. Like us he is just a bit of a screwup. All this is captured perfectly by Austin Abrams' wonderful lead performance. He brings a lot of humanity to this character that automatically endears him to us.

The scares here are completely genuine. While much of the horror is extremely gory, the film does not simply equate being gory with being scary. Instead, it uses the gore as a tool. The filmmakers are not lazy but instead very creative in how they use the gore. The result is some truly unsettling imagery that will stay in your mind long after the credits roll. The designs of the various creatures that once were humans is very well done. They look grotesque and disturbing in the best way possible. The scares also work here because some of them are so unexpected. It is rare to see a horror movie truly takes you by surprise these days, but this film does. 

Probably the biggest surprise of this movie however is just how funny it is. There is a lot of humor throughout and most of it is downright hilarious. Some of the humor could have come directly from a slapstick comedy. It is also some of the best executed slapstick in recent mainstream cinema. More humor comes from our main character's dialogue with himself. Much of this is hilarious because it is both well written and perfectly reflects what would be going through any of our heads during all these creepy goings on. 

Despite the amount of humor here, the movie itself never turns into a joke. It also never gets in the way of the scares. The filmmakers know just when to be funny and when to be scary, balancing out the two extremely well. 

This is an extremely pleasant surprise.