Resident Evil (2022) Review

Resident Evil (2022) is a new Netflix TV series based on the popular video game franchise of the same name. A strong emphasis on the word ‘based’ should be used here as the show doesn’t really follow the story of the games, but instead is more of a retelling/re-imagining of the story.

According to IMDB the synopsis of the TV show is as follows “Nearly three decades after the discovery of the T-virus, an outbreak reveals the Umbrella Corporation’s dark secrets. Based on the horror franchise.”

I have to admit, I haven’t really sat down and binge-watched a new TV show on Netflix for at least a couple of months. The last time I did was when the final season of The Last Kingdom was released and since then, whilst I’ve been watching Netflix almost daily, there’s been nothing I could say I spent an entire day on. Resident Evil (2022) was a TV show that I was looking forward to watching, but in no way did I think I was going to binge-watch it, but I did. I loved the show and didn’t want to leave my room until I finished it.

Whilst I am happy to admit I binge-watched this show, that does not mean the show is perfect. As a person who is a fan of the Resident Evil games and knowing that there are some fans of it out there. I do have to point out that this isn’t a story based on any games. This alone will likely bother a lot of people and put them off watching the show. But it’s not like we haven’t had many film and TV adaptations of Resident Evil already released which deviate quite a bit from the games. I’ve come to expect it. All I expect going into this TV show is that it’s loosely based on the game story and for the most part it certainly is loosely based on the story we know. If you can put this issue aside, what we have here is a pretty decent zombie TV show.

One of the major pluses Resident Evil (2022) has going for it, is the amount of gore in the action sequences. For so long I’ve been wanting to see a zombie TV show with at least a couple of gory scenes. I wanted to see stuff get sliced up and blood everywhere. I want to see things get blown up, zombies get crushed etc. This show has that covered. There are some very gruesome scenes that firmly secure the R18+ rating it has and even some scenes where I thought maybe they’d taken things too far. This was all great and very welcome. This is not a tame TV show in any way.

The action sequences in this show were also pretty good for a TV series. The budget for the show seemed large enough that I was impressed with the production quality. There are giant monsters in some episodes with some very decent CGI. There’s an infected dog that roams around that is very well animated and very scary looking. There are fast-moving zombies and a lot of chases. In all honesty, there’s a bunch of fun to be had with this show.

The storyline is better than I thought it would be. Umbrella corporation is essentially just conducting a variety of highly unethical and severely dangerous experiments with viruses and couldn’t care less because of all the money they could make. Without spoiling it, the villains in the show have no ethics whatsoever and to me, after watching all of the episodes, they’re evil. This is something I appreciate actually, they’re purely evil villains. I know the series is called Resident ‘Evil’ but the show’s writers and creators really pushed the whole ‘evil’ theme here. Almost maybe too far even, but it was good. It’s a bit refreshing actually, so many shows try to push the redeemable villain these days, but not here. The villains are just pure evil and there’s no hope they’ll change.

The storyline is not perfect. The way it is told to the audience is by jumping forward and back in time to explain what is going on. The show’s main characters are two young girls named Jade and Billie Wesker. You will follow Jade and Billie at a time when they were about 15 years old and learn about all the stuff that happened early on at Umbrella corporation with them. Then you will also follow Billie and Jade Wesker a couple of years later when they are more grown up to see what they’re doing in the apocalypse. The show constantly jumps backwards to explain what is happening in the future. Due to the age differences, Jade and Billie Wesker are played by 4 different actresses. 2 for the young versions and 2 for the old versions. This was a bit hard to follow. Surely they could have pulled it off with the younger group. I felt I preferred the younger group a lot more because that is where all the character development was. I didn’t really connect much with the older actresses.

One of the things I did feel was a big plus for the story was the effort put into trying to develop the Jade and Billie Wesker characters. There’s a significant backstory to both of them. The whole show puts significant time into making sure the audience gets to know these two very well and that was much appreciated. I felt very connected to the characters and also their fates. This made some action scenes more thrilling as I wanted the characters to get through dangerous situations.

Another positive about the show is that because so much time was spent on developing characters’ backstories, as a result, we also got to learn a lot about Umbrella corporation and how it functions. I don’t know how many people out there like following Resident Evil lore, but there’s a decent amount to learn about in the show. There’s a variety of mysteries and a lot of questions about what’s shown to audiences in the Umbrella corporation scenes. This is a spoiler-free review so I won’t list them, but for readers wanting some lore component to be there, it’s certainly there.

The acting in the show is pretty good for what this is. I thought that Tamara Smart who played the young Jade Wesker was quite good and she had a good character to play with a lot of great moments. Ella Balinska who plays the old Jade is also decent in the moments she does have as well. I also really enjoyed Lance Reddick’s performance as Albert. The guy has a good voice and delivered a strong performance. Hopefully, we can see more from this actor in the future. Paola Nuñez who plays the show’s primary villain, Evelyn was also very good in the role.

It’s the first time I’ve seen many of these actors, but for anyone who has played Horzion Forbidden West, you might recognise Lance Reddick’s voice as the voice of Sylens.

Overall I felt this was a fairly entertaining show. It’s not perfect and the story jumping between the past and future and also switching the actresses constantly might be a bit jarring for some viewers. But other than that, as an R18+ zombie TV show, it’s fairly decent. Resident Evil (2022) has some decent action sequences, a tonne of gore, an interesting story to follow and some pretty good actors to watch. There’s a decent effort put into developing quite a few of the main characters in the show as well, which is a major plus. For me this show is Binge-worthy, I really enjoyed it and found it quite refreshing. I’m looking forward to a season 2 🙂

For more reviews from Resident Entertainment, you can find them on our website here.