Zach Cregger's Resident Evil film ditches the series' iconic characters but reconstructs what it actually feels like to play the games, according to Guardian Culture critic Keza MacDonald.
The film has no Leon, Claire or Ada Wong. Instead, it centers on Bryan Hodukavich, a courier thrust into a viral outbreak in Raccoon City with no weapons and no clear sense of what is happening. MacDonald notes that some Resident Evil fans have dismissed the adaptation on social media as "not a real Resident Evil movie" because of the absence of recognisable protagonists and antagonists.
MacDonald counters that Cregger's approach is "one of the most accurate and interesting video game films ever made." The film recreates the structural and narrative conventions of the games themselves. Bryan progresses through a sequence of locations pulled directly from the series: an abandoned farmhouse, a tunnel filled with deserted cars, a hospital and a sewer level. As he advances, he finds increasingly powerful weapons, starting with a handgun and moving toward an assault rifle, but ammunition remains scarce.
Cregger also incorporates specific details from the games. Typewriters appear in at least two scenes. These machines function in the Resident Evil games as save points, a core mechanic that shapes how players experience the story. The film also includes the obligatory sewer level, a trope MacDonald identifies as standard in the video game series.
The adaptation explores the games' fundamental themes of escalating peril and body horror. By stripping away established characters, Cregger refocuses the story on the experience of confusion and vulnerability that defines playing Resident Evil. The plot turns on a zombifying virus accidentally released by the Umbrella Corporation, which MacDonald notes forms the foundation of the Resident Evil mythology across the game franchise.
MacDonald's assessment suggests that faithfulness to source material does not require copying character names or plot details. Instead, the film succeeds by capturing the emotional and structural logic of the games themselves.