Resident Evil fails to breathe new life into a franchise that won't die

You’d be forgiven for hearing there’s a new Resident Evil adaptation coming out and thinking, “Didn’t they just try that?” Over the past 20 years, there have been seven Resident Evil movies, including a reboot that came out less than eight months ago. Now, Netflix is tossing yet another title based on the iconic horror games into the mix.

The new series Resident Evil shifts its origins from the U.S. to New Raccoon City in South Africa. The events of the games are meant to be canon and Raccoon City Classic™ is long gone. The show focuses evenly on two timelines, which all shows must apparently do these days. In 2022, twin sisters Jade and Billie Wesker (Tamara Smart and Siena Agudong) move to New Raccoon City with their father, mainstay Resident Evil villain Albert Wesker (Lance Reddick, king of “vaguely threatening face of a shady syndicate” casting). New Raccoon City is a company town built by Umbrella Corporation, a suspicious pharmaceuticals giant with a laundry list of secrets, including the truth about, hey, whatever happened to old Raccoon City?

And then there’s the 2036 storyline, which follows an adult Jade (Ella Balinska) “14 years after the end,” something we learn thanks to an on-the-nose subtitle announcement. She lives in an isolated encampment in the middle of post-apocalyptic London, studying zombies (or “zeroes,” as they’re known here) for any sign that the T-virus that ended the world might be evolving. Save for a cool 300 million survivors, the rest of the Earth’s population has been transformed into shambling masses that check all the modern zombie boxes: wet snarling, sniffing the air for blood, chowing down on background actors—you get the idea.

Between the two periods, the pre-dystopia storyline has more drive. Agudong, Smart, and Reddick work well together as a nuanced family unit. Albert toils for a company that’s up to no good, sure, but he’s also fiercely protective of his children. It would be a stretch to call him a “good dad” (what’s up with him taking their blood samples once every two weeks, for example?), but Reddick’s charisma and warmth round out what could be a fairly thankless role. It’s a shame, then, that the story is packed with inorganic dialogue and a parade of pop culture references. Billie Eilish, Lululemon, and Elon Musk are all name-dropped in the first five minutes of the first episode, driving home that this is the new Resident Evil. This would be tolerable if the outside world had any bearing on how things run in New Raccoon City. Instead, it comes off as lazy window dressing that undercuts the disquieting isolation of the town. “We’re in South Africa and there are, like, three black people here,” Jade whispers to Billie on the drive in.