Resident Evil fans have had it tough. The survival horror video games were brutally misrepresented on the big screen for 15 years under Milla Jovovich and Paul WS Anderson, with last December’s swiftly forgotten reboot Welcome to Raccoon City seeming to promise more faithful adaptations ahead.
Alas, Netflix has now produced a series that bears even less resemblance to the source material, while failing to substitute anything more compelling in its place. The result is a show destined to alienate diehard fans and bore newcomers, which simply screams: “Cancel me after one season!”
The series follows sisters Jade and Billie Wesker, who move halfway across the world to New Raccoon City, South Africa, when their father is relocated by the Umbrella Corporation. The pharmaceutical giant has created a hyper-modern, eerily sterile neighbourhood for employees and their families, which sits atop an underground laboratory where high-risk science experiments are being conducted. What could go wrong? Literally everything, as shown by the split narrative which flashes forward to an apocalyptic vision of the year 2036, where the world is overrun by flesh-eating zombies.
This is Resident Evil in name only, as epitomised by the depiction of the show’s sole video game character: Albert Wesker (John Wick‘s Lance Reddick). Arguably the most recognisable villain of the franchise – known for rocking a leather trench coat with black shades – he has been reinvented as a loving, albeit completely ineffectual, single parent to his two daughters. One can only assume that the writers plan to chart his gradual fall to the dark side over a five-season arc that will inevitably never see the light of day. As it stands, this feels like Reddick on autopilot.
For now, the series is sharply focused on Jade; the only character to appear in both the present day and flash-forward sections of the show, played by Tamara Smart (Artemis Fowl) and Ella Balinska (Charlie’s Angels) respectively. Both are decent enough, although Balinska is given more opportunities to shine, owing to the older Jade’s headstrong attitude and tendency to be attacked by giant creepy-crawlies. These encounters prove to be the show’s most memorable action sequences, with the periodic zombie ambushes being largely devoid of any style or tension by comparison.
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Similarly, the writing leaves a lot to be desired. There are some affecting scenes between Smart’s teenage Jade and her sister Billie (Siena Agudong), which are heightened by a scattering of body horror moments. However, most other characters are exposition dispensers designed to be cannon fodder when the biting starts, so any unanswered questions about their fates don’t feel worth sticking around for. Meanwhile, attempts at social commentary are laughably unsubtle, with Umbrella’s billion-dollar product being a fix-everything pill called Joy. That must have taken a full two minutes to come up with – bravo!
Netflix’s Resident Evil is another swing and a miss for existing fans of this franchise, while the characters, scenario and execution feel too generic to stand a chance at winning over newcomers en masse. It can’t even match up to the divisive Jovovich-led films in terms of absurd thrills, with certain stretches of the series being a slog to get through. There are fleeting bright spots to speak of, from occasional creepy imagery to solid turns from its trio of female leads, but they aren’t enough to justify investing eight hours of your time.
Resident Evil is available to stream on Netflix from Thursday 14th July 2022. Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what’s on tonight.
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