Mortal Kombat recently put out its fourth live-action movie and Street Fighter has a third crack coming this fall.
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Fighter → put → crack
Lara Croft has raided tombs at least three times on the big screen (and Prime Video is currently working on a new TV adaptation starring Sophie Turner as the bombshell archeologist).
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Video → raid → archeologist
But no video game has inspired more major theatrical releases than Resident Evil.
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game → inspire → Evil
With the latest Resident Evil movie hitting “restart” in theaters this weekend, there have been a whopping eight movies based on the series of zombie-centric video games from Capcom.
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movie → hit → Capcom
Though they may not be as universally known as icons like Mario or Sonic, the Resident Evil games have been celebrated as particularly scary, cinematic, and immersive, so it makes sense that they’d become fodder for cinema.
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they → know → cinema
With the first game celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, it’s only natural that a new movie would accompany that milestone.
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movie → celebrate → milestone
But is Zach Cregger’s film really the title that Resident Evil newbies should start with?
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newbies → start → that
Version Control has the answer.
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Control → have → answer
We examine multiple iterations of the same stories and properties to determine which one is most worth your streaming time and/or disposable income.
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one → examine → time
Here, we’ll take a look at the three separate times that a cinematic Resident Evil adaptation kicked off — in 2002, 2021, and 2026 — through the lens of a movie-watcher more than a gamer.
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adaptation → take → gamer
(Dedicated gamers have probably seen at least one of these at some point out of curiosity — or ignored them out of frustration.)
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gamers → see → frustration
None of them really rank among the best zombie movies ever made.
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None → rank → movies
They do, however, have their own creative strengths in approaching a well-worn subgenre.
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They → have → subgenre
Let’s figure out which version works best, going through these part ones in chronological order.
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version → figure → order
Here are the Resident Evil movies, ranked:
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movies → rank → ?
There was no billion-dollar standard-bearer like those Super Mario cartoons; Lara Croft: Tomb Raider had only recently become the biggest-grossing video game movie of all time.
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Croft → be → time
The only other big hit it passed to get there?
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it → pass → ?
Though not necessarily a gaming acolyte by nature, Anderson was ultimately handed another high-profile game-to-screen project: Resident Evil, which by that point had passed through a number of hands, including, amazingly, George A. Romero, the zombie maestro who seemed perfectly suited for the best-known zombie-shooting game.
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who → hand → game
The studio didn’t see it that way, and Anderson got the job.
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Anderson → see → job
It was fortuitous for him in a number of ways; not only did he become the shepherd to a hit franchise, but he met Milla Jovovich, whom he subsequently married.
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he → become → whom
(They remain a couple to this day.)
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They → remain → day
This is all to say that the original Resident Evil is as much about Anderson and Jovovich’s whole deal as it is about the beloved game series — and at the same time, in terms of Jovovich/Anderson team-ups, some of their later work, within the franchise and outside of it, is actually a lot better.
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some → say → it
Resident Evil has an irresistible premise, with Alice (Jovovich) waking up without any memory of the mansion she appears to inhabit.
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she → have → mansion
She’s apparently working as security for the Umbrella Corporation facility underneath the house, where there has been a recent security breach.
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She → work → house
She joins a team heading down into the facility to find what turns out to be a rampant zombie-making virus, and everyone has to fight their way out.
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everyone → join → way
There’s plenty to like about the movie, including Jovovich, an early role for Michelle Rodriguez, and a very memorable hallway sequence where some poor team members get sliced and diced by a red laser.
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members → ’ → laser
But some of the later entries lean further into the action-sci-fi-horror hybrid that Anderson (who wrote all six movies in the series and directed four of them) clearly favors.
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who → lean → them
As such, the third, fourth, and sixth entries, which incorporate ripoffs of Mad Max, The Matrix, and other classics in addition to the Romero stuff, are really the highlights here.
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which → incorporate → stuff
Still, even the first movie is pretty high-tier as far as video game adaptations of the 2000s go.
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adaptations → go → 2000s
It was really sustained, though, by its massiveness overseas — to the point where the The Final Chapter, the sixth movie, made far less in North America than the others while still becoming the biggest-grossing installment worldwide on the strength of its $300 million in international money (especially in China and Japan).
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Chapter → sustain → China
Following this 2017 finale, the property was rebooted in a way that would supposedly show more fidelity to the games.
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that → follow → games
The result, Welcome to Raccoon City, bombed during the Thanksgiving season of 2021.
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result → bomb → 2021
(This itself was a baffling release-date decision, given the past sequels’ success in September and horror movies’ success in October.)
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This → give → October
I can’t speak to Raccoon City as an adaptation of a video game that I do not play, but as an adaptation of John Carpenter movies in general, it’s pretty solid.
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it → speak → movies
It follows Claire Redfield (Kaya Scodelario) as she makes an ill-time returned to her hometown of Raccoon City, just as a zombie outbreak is starting to spread.
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outbreak → follow → City
Her brother Chris (Robbie Arnell) happens to be on the team tasked with quelling the outbreak, alongside game mainstay Jill Valentine (Hannah John-Kamen).
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brother → happen → Valentine
With the desolate, mostly-abandoned vibes of a once-powerful blue-collar town, Welcome to Raccoon City becomes a series of Assault on Precinct 13-style standoffs and sieges, stylishly lit and shot by B-movie expert Johannes Roberts, who also made movies like Primate and The Strangers: Prey at Night way better than they needed to be.
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they → abandon → Night
It failed to inspire a long-running series, and that may be just as well; John Carpenter didn’t make that many sequels either.
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Carpenter → fail → sequels
But despite some thin characters and less badass action than the Anderson series, this one is fun while it lasts.
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it → last → series
After the Raccoon City flop, the series got a faster-than-usual second reboot when Zach Cregger, the filmmaker behind Barbarian and Weapons, showed interest in the game as one of the few pieces of IP he might want to try his hands at adapting in a career he otherwise intends to be full of original material.
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he → get → material
…and 14 more, not listed.
The Aporia
