A Case for Resident Evil’s Loose Adaptations!

-For the Uncensored!

(trailer for Netflix’s 2022 Resident Evil)

Resident Evil, in all of its live action adaptations, have always been a finicky issue to write or speak about. I know there are eyerolls at the idea presented, but the case has to be made. Not every piece of literature has to follow word for word what a story is. Lord of the Rings, while many consider it a masterpiece of film adaptation, had to make sacrifices in order to bring that legendary series to the screen. Resident Evil, to me, is the closest thing to malleable clay for each film or series adapter, that it almost presents new facets of viewpoints that an original series might have missed out on. But a brief history must be done in order to understand the interpretations of 2022 Netflix’s Resident Evil adaptation.

            Paul W.S. Anderson[1], Alexander Witt, Russel Mulcahy, and even George A. Romero[2], “the godfather of zombie cinema”[3] and Andrew Dabb, have been attracted to and gave their own spin on what the Resident Evil franchise means. Even if it might not give much credence to mainline games, Resident Evil has always been a staple of the film community. No matter what takes are given, they have their audience, but also deeply sharp criticism.

            Roger Ebert’s comments on the March 15th, 2002 live action adaptation are “ The characters have no small talk. Their dialogue consists of commands, explanations, exclamations and ejaculations. Yes, an ejaculation can be dialogue. If you live long enough you may find that happening frequently”[4] somewhat subjectively fierce. It’s an old man commenting on a film that is not serving his generations needs. Relating Anderson’s 2002’s Resident Evil to George Romero and John Carpenter, in the review, proves that he’s trying to reflect a current new film to something that was popular in his day, is what happens to people who are stuck in another time. And it’s okay for Ebert to make this assumption, even if I don’t agree with it.

            Now the interpretation is somewhat reflective of Ebert’s sharp but also jaded perspective in 2022, except in a louder more expressive way thanks to the Internet, too. Imagine having to shove out a review in order to reflect an hour and thirty minutes run time. People have their likes and dislikes. That’s abundantly clear. But it’s not how I interpreted the films, as I was also not looking too deeply into it, or even had the words to describe it.

            Now, let’s be clear. No film is above criticism, but also, trying to compare, as Roger Ebert foolishly did, to George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” and John Carpenter’s “Ghost of Mars”[5] is not giving the Anderson run series much credit. It was merely once more trying to reflect a time when video games did not have the sheen or visual flare that most modern video games have in 2022.

            With 2022’s Resident Evil, Andrew Dabb’s setting the series in South Africa, with Alex Wesker, being portrayed as an overworked father by Lance Reddick, is a comedic take itself, but as the series progressed, the weight of his performance, does outshine the base Internet perceptions created by online personalities with too much time on their hands, and no idea how to spend it. Wesker, this interpretation, is a clone of his original self that caused the Umbrella disaster in 1998. This might not borrow much on its face, the idea itself allows Dabb to present Wesker in ways that allow some brevity, in a moment of complete chaos.