When it comes to the Resident Evil franchises forays into film and television, they’ve never been good. But while the Milla Jovovich-led films saw box office success despite poor to middling reviews, the same cannot be said of the new show on Netflix.
The series has the lowest audience score on Rotten Tomatoes of any Netflix Original to date, which at the time of writing sits at just 26%. Things are marginally better on the critic’s side of things with a score of 50%.
There is the possibility of review bombing due to possible political and racist reasons (the four main actors are all people of colour playing characters that were formerly white). I found a few phrases repeated like that the show is “aimed at sending political messages and not entertainment,” a couple of times so scores may be skewed slightly but overwhelmingly the reason why the show is getting such a bad reception is simply because it isn’t good.
Critics in general praised the show for its faithfulness to the games, but criticised the uninspired writing, narrative inconsistencies, slow pace, and Young Adult cliches.
There was a lot of criticism towards the cast (with the exception of Lance Reddick) audience reviews like Aaaron J called the lead characters “unlikeable” and even the “villains are unlikeable, but not for the reasons you want to not like them.” He also criticised the narrative calling it confusing if you haven’t played the games before.
Resident Evil borrows a lot from the Young Adult genre which seems to be what people are upset about the most. Some say that this swing is “set up to intentionally annoy older fans and confuse newer ones,” adding that they’re “not even sure who this is for?”
Allen B put it quite well, “…what they seem to be doing lately is making shows that try to cross age and taste boundaries. Unfortunately, this makes for shows that do not appeal to either audience. In this case, they tried to mix tween, horror and action/adventure. It didn’t quite work.”
Anyway, I found this hilarious edit online that seems to sum up most people’s problem with the show. Enjoy!
Resident Evil takes place fourteen years after the deadly T-virus caused a global apocalypse. Jade Wesker fights for survival in a world overrun by infected zombie-like creatures while being haunted by her past, her father, and what happened to her sister, Billie.
The series is currently available on Netflix.
For more, check out everything we know about Stranger Things season 5 and the potential spin-off.
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