Movie: Resident Evil (2026)
Production Companies: Columbia Pictures, Constantin Film, Davis Films, Subconscious, Vertigo Entertainment, Playstation Productions
Distributed by: Sony Pictures
Producer(s): Robert Kulzer, Zach Cregger, Roy Lee, Miri Yoo, Victor Hadida, Carter Swan
Directed by: Zach Cregger
Written by: Zach Cregger, Shay Hatten
Starring: Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter Hauser
Review by: Cam Wiggs

Since the early days of cinema, adapting an existing piece of media to the medium of feature-length film has been a common practice. In fact, most movies I see throughout a given year are based on an existing novel, novella, play, poem, article, folktale, or some other sort of existing source material.

Since the advent of in-home console gaming roughly 40 years ago, video game-to-movie adaptations have become increasingly common. And, interestingly enough, almost all of them are bad.

It’s true, you could count the number of objectively decent video game movies on one hand and you’d be hard-pressed to find any film adapted from a video game that is considered objectively good. That is until this past weekend, when Zach Cregger’s new take on the Resident Evil franchise released in theaters around the world.

Cregger, coming off back-to-back critical and commercial successes (relative to their size) in Barbarian (2022) and Weapons (2024), took a crack at adapting one of the most beloved horror franchises in any storytelling medium and found the right key (perhaps even adorned with one of the franchise’s classic card deck-inspired icons) to unlock the Resident Evil puzzle box.

So what did Cregger do differently with his adaptation that other video game movies couldn’t? For starters, he perfected the protagonist. In any story, the protagonist can make or break it. And the Resident Evil franchise is chock-full of incredible, iconic protagonists: Leon, Jill, Chris, Claire, Ethan, and Grace to name a few. So which one did Cregger go with?… Bryan. Wait, he wasn’t on the list. Exactly.

Fans of the franchise may not like this take, but going with a nobody as the protagonist in Resident Evil is the film’s secret sauce. One of the core issues many video game adaptations have is the protagonist. It probably seems insane given how beloved so many video game protagonists are – Lara Croft, Nathan Drake, Mario, Sonic, Link, and more – but there are two simple reasons video game films always struggle to nail the protagonist.

Reason Number 1: Video game protagonists are vessels rather than fully-fledged characters.

Think about it: a video game character has to be relatable to most of the people playing the game. How do you accomplish that? You make them intentionally ill-defined. They are vague and malleable, a mostly-blank slate. This quality allows the player to easily inhabit the character while playing the game, maximizing the immersion effect. This same quality, however, makes video game characters terrible movie leads.

Reason Number 2: Video game protagonists are usually covered by plot armor.

By using an existing protagonist from an existing IP, you incur a ton of baggage. Not only fan expectations and lore/canon continuity responsibilities, but also the responsibility of where you take that character in your film. And a lot of times, that means there is a natural cap on how far you can take your story. After all, you don’t want to be the guy who kills or maims a beloved character, forever altering the canon of the franchise, right?

Cregger solves these problems by zigging where other video game movies zagged. His Resident Evil movie undoubtedly takes place in the game’s universe but rejects any of its pre-baked protagonists in favor of a new character, Bryan, played by Austin Abrams. And Bryan, thanks in part to a very-detailed performance by Abrams as well as smart writing by Cregger, is unlike any of the aforementioned protagonists. He is, for lack of a better term, a normal dude. Giving us a glimpse into the Umbrella Corporation’s post-apocalyptic nightmare through the terrified eyes of an unwitting bystander rather than a trained, ex-special forces, absolute unit of a character.

This choice provides a number of benefits to the story including addressing both of the issues mentioned above.

1. Being a nobody, Bryan has zero plot armor around him. He is a crash test dummy. You can do whatever you want to this character without ramifications to the larger franchise. Not only does this provide Cregger with more writing freedom, it also conveniently removes the predictability of the film, allowing Cregger to choose from a menu of radical, creative story choices to keep the audience on their toes.
   
2. Bryan being a new character affords Cregger the empty canvas to flesh out a full character profile without having to navigate the intentionally vague personalities of the Resident Evil franchise’s existing protagonists.

Still, as important as these two benefits are to the story, there is one aspect of the film that benefits even more from the choice to go with a normie protagonist: the tone.

It’s simple. If the protagonist is a normie vs. a certified beast, the scaries are scarier. Not only that, but the tone is naturally lighter, giving Cregger the option to occasionally and tactically break the tension with a well-timed joke, a skill for which he is likely in the 99th percentile among active writer-directors. Admittedly, there are times where the tone of this movie went a little too far into the realm of silly and wacky for my taste, but the level of difficulty on executing this tone is so high that I am willing to be more lenient.

That said, when you map it all out, it’s obvious going with a basic protagonist was the right choice. It’s not the choice that is going to please long-time fans of the franchise, but it’s the choice that best serves the movie. Which reminds me of the other key difference between Cregger’s Resident Evil and other video game adaptations: he refused to succumb to “fan service.”

Video game adaptations, perhaps moreso than any other type of film adaptation other than novel adaptations, are subject to immense amounts of fan pressure. These fans are voracious. In many cases, they have spent many, many hours of their lives inhabiting the same worlds video game film directors are trying to bring to life on the big screen. As such, they feel they are owed something for that. In many cases, I think these video game fandoms would be more pleased with a heaping pile of “fan service” than a coherent movie. And that is the reason I think so many video adaptations end up giving the fans what they want. In doing so, however, those adaptations do a massive disservice to the quality of the film.

Still, you can’t make a video game film with zero nods to the games. Doing so would be disingenuous. So what’s the solution? Balance.

What Cregger provides Resident Evil fans in this film is not only more tasteful than a spoonful of “fan service,” it’s also more intentional. To understand the aspects of the games to include for maximum fan appeal with minimal detraction from the story or suspension of disbelief requires a more intimate knowledge of the games than it appears. As a fan of the Resident Evil games myself (admittedly not avid, but I’ve played many of them all the way through), it is evident that Cregger is a huge fan of the games as well. From the stylish FPS style shots, to the inclusion of the puzzle box elements, and winks to classic RE tropes and running fan jokes, what Zach Cregger delivers here is more lovingly designed for the fans than most of what we typically consider “fan service.”

As such, my sincere hope is that Resident Evil fans put aside their disappointment in the film’s choice to forego a Leon-centric story and bask in the reality that their favorite franchise has birthed one of the best horror movies of the year and the greatest video game film adaptation of all time.

8.8/10

By: Cam Wiggs