Undead and Un… I got nothing. I watched all the “Resident Evil” movies [they’re really bad].

On today’s episode of “I knew this wouldn’t be good, but I was surprised it was this bad”, I chewed my way through all of the Resident Evil films (pun intended). While the first one is still pretty strong as a standalone flick, the rest mostly suffer from incomplete storytelling, bad cinematography, corny dialogue, unbelievable characters, and tropey, stupid plots. While I didn’t expect much more from the series… I did sort of expect the later movies would at least be fun…

#1 “Resident Evil” (2002)

The original film, Resident Evil largely stands out from the rest as it has excellent cinematography, consistent and contiguous editing, believable characters, good performances across the board, and a plot that starts and ends without breaking any of its own rules or relying on subsequent films to flesh it out. As an early 00’s film, Resident Evil stands tall amid the ocean of trash that was soon to follow from the genre. While still not a great as a stand alone, within the confines of the “zombie thriller”, it takes more than just one bite out of the competition.

#2 “Resident Evil 3: Extinction” (2007)

Resident Evil 3 begins and ends in-(relative)-tact and is the only other film in the series with any sort of editing to speak of. The movie feels processed and refined even when the plot begins to take us in some wacky directions with Alice and her newfound psychic powers. Character motivations are mostly realistic and performances aren’t corny or over the top (for the most part). The story for Extinction also begins somewhere and ends somewhere else, completing it’s internal journey while leaving room for the future films, but without relying on them to finish it’s fight. While not nearly as strong as the first, it also isn’t nearly as bad as the latter or it’s direct predecessor.

#3 and #4 “This Page Left Intentionally Blank”

Slot #3 and #4 I left blank just to denote how drastically different the other films were. They certainly belong lumped together, but they shouldn’t be compared so closely with the original film or even Extinction. The level of quality diminishes so drastically as the series goes on that it makes Extinction look like an Oscar award worthy film by comparison.

#5 “Resident Evil 4: Afterlife” (2010)

Coming in hot at #5, Afterlife, the 4th film in the series, is where we really really begin our ascent “over the shark”, as they say. Things just… stop making sense here. We get an opening sequence with Alice and her clone army attacking an Umbrella facility where no one except our heroes seems able to hit anything, bad guys in full battle dress die in single shots, and professional tactical planning looks like a 9-year old playing Call of Duty. Named characters survive the impossible, we manage to land an airplane on top of a building, explosives don’t damage elevators, and characters can hold their breaths for what seems like hours while swimming through sewage water. The series just really, really starts to lose it’s edge here. Nothing really matters and the plot doesn’t really begin or end anywhere meaningful; it’s basically just a continuation of Extinction, and one that we didn’t exactly need. Afterlife doesn’t add anything to the series except the inclusion of some goofy plot points from Resident Evil 5 the game for us to use in the cinematic universe. It’s also the first and last time we see some characters from previous films.. Or this one. Whatever happened to K-Mart and Chris?

#6 “Resident Evil 5: Retribution” (2012)

The #6 spot was a hard choice. Retribution was a higher quality film in some technical aspects than other entries, but boy howdy was it also way stupider. We begin the film with a really cool reverse sequence of a hostile ship takeover, and then we go right into a way-too-long expositional piece where we’re just handed the story of the first few movies, which then lands us back at the takeover but at full speed and going forward this time, finally landing us in an incredibly long alternate reality take on Alice’s life where she has a family during the zombie takeover. We ultimately learn whatever about this sequence, but it lasts SO long and doesn’t mean ANYTHING. Which, in hindsight, is really just an allegory for this film as a whole.

In Retribution we introduce (forcefully and for no reason) several more Resident Evil universe characters but they’re all horribly acted, written in ways that are silly at best, and… none of them matter. They all wrap up entirely within this singular film and don’t really help it’s plot along regardless. They’re just names.

The upside is that all of their costumes and such were absolutely spot on and very fun. Retribution had some seriously excellent combat scenes but absolutely hinged on the action trope of “named characters don’t wear helmets and also don’t die while everyone else wears full body coverings and dies instantly”. This outing does the most rule breaking and has the most “What!?” moments of the entire series, but it was still more enjoyable than the last two entries on this list.

The plot never goes anywhere, and nothing that happens ultimately matters. We do get one piece of really cool plot justification from this film about how and why the T-Virus was spread initially… but then it doesn’t matter and the next film in the series completely and absolutely ruins it anyway. Charming.

#7 “Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse” (2004)

So, now that we’re here, let’s talk about the second film in the series… Landing itself in the second to last spot of the list, Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse is a nightmare start to finish; and not the kind you want from a zombie thriller. Bad camera work, horrible writing, a plot that makes about as much sense as eating cereal with a fork, and characters that you not only don’t care about, but don’t like or believe… Apocalypse is honestly not even worth your time. It has no saving graces. The only reason it doesn’t end up in the very last spot of the list is because it’s plot (while stupid) does conclude entirely within itself and it doesn’t ruin anything interesting set up from a previous film. Unlike our final entry in both the list and the series…

#8 “Resident Evil 6: The Final Chapter” (2016)

Resident Evil 6: The Final Chapter picks up after another incredibly long expositional piece where we [again] get the entire plot of the series described to us. This time, however, we aren’t just told old information to catch us up on over a decade of films, we’re told new information about actions and characters we’ve never even heard of… all of whom… are from the past. (What?)

I watched all of these over the course of a few days and still had no idea what was happening.

Then the movie really begins and we’re thrust into a vastly different setting than where the previous one ended with basically no explanation except “it was a trap”… which absolutely does not explain where we find ourselves.

The dialogue is bad, the logic is bad, there’s basically no score at all, and the plot only gets worse and worse as the film goes on. The entire conflict hinges on a single piece of information that doesn’t make sense to pursue, that the enemy knows already and does nothing about, and makes no sense to even utilize at the end. It’s difficult to pin down single examples of stupidity in the final film of this series, because it’s all stupid start to finish. We hang on The Matrix trope of “he can dodge a bullet but not a fist”, get fight scenes where one character inexplicably (who happens to be, I think, the only Asian character in the film) knows advanced fighting techniques, and utilize unbalanced and ridiculous uses of technology in some cases but absolutely archaic ones in others. There’s no consistency here, there’s no plot to speak of, there’s no believability in any of the characters. The only things The Final Chapter did well were ruin the interesting plot points that Retribution set up with it’s simulated outbreaks and selling of the footage and virus to rivaling entities, and… well… end. While Resident Evil 6, the game, was far and away the worst Resident Evil game of the entire series, it was still an absolute blast to play and should have just been made as a standalone title. Resident Evil 6, the movie, an absolutely atrocious pile of garbage that I’m sad even graced our cinemas. It had no redeeming qualities at all.

All in all; the first film in the series is still well worth your time while all the rest you could skip. 2 and 6 are the only complete wastes of time because the others are at least fun to watch as vapid zombie pieces and have some real fun action sequences. They’re rebooting the series with a firm finger on the reset button later this year and I’m interested to see where it all goes…