I don’t normally write reviews here but thought I’d write something to offset the insane comments.


I shouldn’t have to, but I probably should preface this by saying I picked up the Resident Evil games from day one, I was counting days down to the launch of Resident Evil 2 back in 1998. I’ve been with this series long-term. Full admission I could only hack watching the first two live-action Paul Anderson films before I tapped out, I found them cringe inducing and made me embarrassed to call myself a fan of zombie genre nevermind the games. Maybe I will revisit them but there’s just so much good content out these days I doubt I will find time to suffer through anything other than Red Letter Media’s reviews. No one can argue that they made loads of money which has the habit of making them critic proof, but as with the Transformer films I’d say they are obviously aimed at that age bracket when the audience doesn’t know any better. To somehow do shot for shot recreations and still make it feel like you hold disdain and make outrageous amounts of money is an amazing trick to pull off.


There are only so many ways you can tell the Umbrella story, pharmacy company experimenting outside of the law (and often logic), as much as I liked stuff like Resident Evil Revelations and the Capcom produced CG-animated films and series (and I do) you can’t argue that it’s xerox of a story structure that was setup in the series’ concept. Shinji Mikami understood this and that’s why we have the departure that was Resident Evil 4, Capcom followed this lead, so you have mainstream titles like Village. To say that this TV series has nothing in common with the franchise is like complaining Resident Evil 7 strayed too far from Resident Evil 2.
I can only describe most of the comments and criticism from non-critics online as thinly vailed racism; there really isn’t a bigger set of entitled, whiney people than “gamers”, its distasteful to tar all the people same brush and that isn’t the case for everyone (I dread to think how munch money I’ve passed Capcom’s way over the years) but the comments I’ve seen with this series has been some of appalling and reminded why I backed away from videogame culture online.


I totally get the criticism of re-casting a beloved character outside of pre-existing expectations, however, judge it by the end result. I don’t understand how anyone can watch this series and not say Lance Reddick absolutely owned the version of Wesker here. I was too wondering in the early episodes why he wasn’t a version of William Birkin until the madness kicks in and the twist is revealed. After that point Reddick owns it here. I remember a similar kickback when Michael Clarke-Duncan was cast as Kingpin in the Daredevil movie (was it really 20 years ago? How little some things have changed) and he ended up being the absolute best thing in that mis-judged film.
Outside of merit of the actors here, to object to the casting of BAME actors is petty considering there are literally dozens of Resident Evil media with predominantly white casts already. Yes the teen versions in the flashbacks can be annoying, but as someone who has three teenagers 1) they can be annoying and 2) although we all speak English some of the stuff they come out with I cant even pretend to understand. If you find some of the dialogue in this series off the wall you should spend a weekend at my house for random.


If you want something faithful to the videogames (and is fun) then Welcome To Raccoon City is good fun; if you want something that feels fresh (with some more subtle nudges to the games) then this should be for you. If you dig the other Resident Evil live action series, then good for you - enjoy what you enjoy.