Jack Heath 🖊️
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When something is both overrated and terrific 💉

14 October 2026

(Reminder: Choppy Water comes out in 19 days! Pre-order now.)

Bryan is a twenty-something loser who works as an organ courier.

While driving through a snowstorm at night with no chains on his tires and also arguing with his girlfriend on the phone about an unplanned pregnancy, he runs over a pedestrian. She's still alive (or is moving around, at least) and he was going to the hospital anyway, so he straps her into the passenger seat and keeps going, thinking he's having the worst night of his life. Anyone familiar with the Resident Evil universe knows his troubles have barely begun.

I was a fan of the RE movies and games in my teens and twenties, so my wife and I went to see the new movie last week. The first half is fantastic. Five stars, no notes. Tense, frightening, unpredictable and funny, often all at once. (The scene where the zombie is chasing Bryan around and around an overturned car is a highlight.)

"I don't know if I've ever screamed out loud in a theatre before," I said afterwards.

"And you kept going for a weirdly long time," my wife observed.

The second half is merely good. Three stars. The monsters get bigger, grosser and more numerous. Other human characters are introduced. None are very interesting, but they don't hang around long after delivering the information Bryan needs. The ending is a bit of a downer. Still, we walked out of the cinema happy enough. In my head, I gave the movie 4/5 stars overall.

But then I kept thinking about it. For days and days. I'm not sure why. Maybe I was worried about Choppy Water, which also has a smart, tense first half and a loud, gory, flammable second half.

I looked up some reviews of the film, trying to better understand my own feelings. I was surprised to learn that the film has near-universal critical acclaim. According to Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of reviews have been positive. Earlier Resident Evil movies were sneered at by critics; on Rotten Tomatoes, none scored higher than 39%. (My favourite, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, scored only 18%). I didn't think the new one was much better than the old ones—why was it getting such great press?

Maybe I just have terrible taste. (My friends think so.) Maybe the big, dumb second half of this new movie was actually very clever and sophisticated in ways I couldn't perceive. I'm a book guy, not a movie guy. What would I know?

But after thinking about it for a week (which is about how long I usually take to form an opinion about anything) I've come to another theory.

The previous Resident Evil movies put women front and centre: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Sienna Guillory, Ali Larter and others. They shot, punched, kicked and telekinesised their way through hordes of zombies and looked great doing it. They also fought attack dogs, mercenaries, a dragon, some dude with a giant axe, you name it. (For that last one, you really need to imagine you're watching it in full 3D.)

The diversity of the cast around these women was also notable: Colin Salmon, Oded Fehr, Mike Epps, Razaaq Adoti, etc. (In the DVD commentary, director Paul W.S. Anderson talked about casting Oded Fehr because women think he's sexy—women were the intended audience for these films, as well as the subject of them.)

For context, here are the top-grossing movies which came out alongside the first Resident Evil movie back in 2002:

There are some great movies on that list. But how many didn't sideline their female characters? How many included People of Colour?

This might not be the only reason critics dumped on the Resident Evil franchise. The plot was convoluted. The special effects were cheesy. But I'm sure prejudice was a factor. In those days, silly action movies about white men were celebrated. Silly action movies about anyone else were scorned.

Of course, that was way back in 2002—almost a quarter of a century ago. Things have changed.

Haven't they?

Resident Evil (2026) stars a white guy. Every female character dies within minutes of appearing on the screen (except Bryan's girlfriend, who never appears at all, and whose only function in the story is to be pregnant). Their deaths are often played for laughs.

96% on Rotten Tomatoes. Universal acclaim.

Again, I thought it was a good movie. (I'll remind you that it made me scream for a "weirdly long time" in the theatre.)

I just wish I could take one percent away from that Rotten Tomatoes rating and send it back in time to 2002, giving those hard-working storytellers just a little of the credit they deserved.

Events

I'll be at:

Gotta go! Thanks for reading.

Cheers,
Jack

(Via paulnoth.com)

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