Resident Evil: Netflix's eight-part adaptation's very different from the movies
This franchise has been living among us for a quarter of a century now.
From its origins as a cult-smash video game in 1996 – still regarded as one of the best and most influential games ever made – the Resident Evil universe now embraces seven live-action films and countless other spin-offs and products.
Resident Evil was largely responsible for reintroducing zombies to popular culture and proving that ideas such as 28 Days Later (2002) would find an audience.
And now, the series has made it to television, via an eight-part adaptation that appears to get many things right, even while it is disappointing and disenfranchising a lot of the game and film series fans.
Resident Evil revisits the origin story of the games, but also changes pretty much everything around. Our main characters here are two young women – played by Ella Balinska and Adeline Rudolph, as the daughters of Albert Wesker (The Wire’s Lance Reddick). Tamara Smart and Siena Agudong play the sisters as teenagers, in flashbacks set in 2022 – the year that the world first went all to hell.
Critics of the show point to the lack of action and how different the storylines are from anything that the feature films have explored. While fans will say the writing is exploring plot points that are in the game play and that the focus on character and storytelling – rather than action and bloodshed – makes for a compelling, engaging show that achieves far more than the films ever attempted. I think both sides have a point.
Me? I kind of like it, although I was never a huge fan of the films or the games, so I don't have any real investment here.
* The Gray Man: Netflix's spectacular, pointless, witless, repetitive action movie * Girl in the Picture: Compassion,
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