The Resident Evil franchise is brainless but effective action filmmakingīelieve it or not, the Resident Evil films do offer more than dumb fun. To understand why, it helps to understand what these movies are trying to do - and what they aren’t.
The Resident Evil movies, which individually come across as little more than extended excuses to stage elaborate action sequences, together add up to one of the most reliably successful brainless action franchises in the Hollywood landscape, and a lone success story in the vast wasteland of failed video game movie adaptations.
While it’s not that unusual for poorly reviewed action movies to have surprisingly long franchise lives - see also: the Underworld series - Resident Evil’s endurance is unique among movies based on video games, which are rarely successful enough to warrant one sequel, let alone five. With a 39 percent fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes, the sixth and most recent entry, The Final Chapter, is the best-reviewed of the bunch. The movies, which have grossed more than a billion dollars worldwide since 2002, clearly have their fans, but they are not especially loved by critics. The franchise, based on the popular video games from Capcom, traffics in crude characterizations, hackneyed storytelling, and pulpy sci-fi and horror clichés. No one would ever mistake a Resident Evil movie for high art.