96% on Rotten Tomatoes, 71 reviews. That's the highest-rated video game movie ever, beating Exit 8's 71 Metascore by a margin wider than most people know how to measure. It's not a sequel cash grab or a lazy port of a story into celluloid. This film leans so far from what fans wanted that its director had to apologize for making it. Zach Cregger said he felt like he was on an apology tour after backlash over reimagining the franchise rather than adapting existing games. He wasn't wrong about that feeling. Critics? They're eating it up.
Previous Resident Evil movies were disasters in disguise. Paul W.S. Anderson's 2016 The Final Chapter scored a 49% on Metacritic, and Johannes Roberts' 2021 Welcome to Raccoon City fared worse at 44%. These weren't just bad—they were actively hostile to the source material. Fans demanded more faithful adaptations but got soulless regurgitations of zombie tropes with none of the game's tension or dread. This new version isn't based on a game. It's original, set in Raccoon City, and it doesn't feature any characters from the series. Yet here we are: critics calling it "one of the best video game movies ever made" while fans rage about how wrong it is.
Constantin Film Group owns Resident Evil rights since the '90s but didn't have to consult Capcom for this one—yet they did anyway. Oliver Berben, Constantin's CEO, said his team "didn't contractually need to," yet chose to out of respect. That contrasts sharply with past projects like Borderlands, where Lionsgate ate losses after 2023's movie flopped. Nintendo now co-finances Super Mario Bros. and Zelda movies with over 50% funding, ensuring final say. Capcom let this movie happen without a contract.
The film's success isn't just numbers—it's what it ignores. The T-Virus doesn't appear in the script. Monsters aren't infected by it either. Purists will complain, but David Ehrlich at IndieWire called it "the right kind of adaptation," focusing on "the perspective of the unseen player: us." That's not a cop-out—it's a bold choice to make the movie about playing the game rather than retelling its story.
Austin Abrams plays a medical courier who stumbles into Raccoon City's disaster zone. He nearly died making it, which is impressive considering how much gore and body horror this film has. Legacy Effects and Shane Mahan brought 2,000-pound monsters to life—no creature slacks in appearance. IGN called the design "Lovecraftian" with a gleeful edge that leans into the game's legacy rather than shying away from it.
Cregger and Shay Hatten avoided jump scares for cheap effect. They used whip pans to increase tension, something that works because the film is genuinely scary. Tessa Smith at Mama's Geeky called it "absolutely terrifying," while Jeffrey Lyles noted intentionally poorly lit areas and gory moments with exploding heads. This isn't a movie where horror feels forced or cheapened by CGI—it's visceral, uncomfortable, and deliberate.
The real breakthrough here is how it redefines video game adaptations. Earlier attempts treated games as blueprints—checklists of characters, settings, plot beats to copy. This one treats them like a mood board. It captures the "breathless terror" of the games without replicating their story or mechanics. GameSpot gave it an 8/0 for doing that, calling it "successful." Critics saw more: Matt Goldberg at Decoding Everything called it a lesson that adapting a game can't just be "a series of references."
Nintendo's approach with Mario movies—co-financing and creative control—sets a new standard. Take-Two let Lionsgate handle Borderlands, which ended in financial ruin for the studio. Capcom didn't have to do as much work on Resident Evil but did anyway. That matters because fan backlash isn't just noise—it's an obstacle. Cregger thought fans would embrace his ideas. They didn't. But critics? All over it.
The film opens September 18 and is expected to break box office records for the franchise, but its true victory lies in proving video game adaptations don't have to be slavish retellings of what's already been done. It's not perfect—no one said it was—but it's a step forward. For once, fans are wrong about what they want. And maybe that's the point.
Resident Evil isn't the first video game movie to be praised by critics and hated by fans. But for the first time in years, a film based on a game doesn't feel like a missed opportunity or cynical cash grab. It feels like someone made something they wanted to make, even if it meant burning down old rules of adaptation. That's why this matters—not because it's perfect, but because it's willing to be wrong about what fans expect. The box office will show if this approach works—or fails—on its own merits.
