The first news of a better adaptation of Resident Evil game (not a reboot, don't call it that, Anderson's series were vaguely based on the game and that always bothered me!) was exciting, but when I saw the first images and trailer I instantly felt I wouldn't like it.
To start, the abysmal take of Leon, one of the main characters, a badass hero, is portrayed here as a useless, stupid wimp, who looks virtually the complete opposite to the character in the game. So it's not the first impression from the images about the total miss cast in terms of look, the character was destroyed in an insulting way and Avan Jogia performance is terrible. That pretty much ruined the movie for me.
Jill Valentine is the other terrible miss cast, even if you put aside the look of the actress, the character doesn't feel like what it was in the game.
I've read an interview with the (terrible) director and writer of this mess, Johannes Roberts, saying basically that he didn't care that much about the look of the actors (bad approach, in my opinion, but well..), but wanted to get actors that feel like the characters in the game. I wonder WHAT game did this guy play. Honestly. Absolute miss.
But if you leave Leon and Jill characters poor adaptations off the movie, it still looks and feel amateurish and poorly written. The dialogs, pace and action, it's quite an eye roll fest.
Lots of scenes are poorly light, and I don't mean too dark, it's just cheap and lousy cinematography. Not all though, some scenes look good, but unfortunately they're the least. The colouring also feels like a bad choice, everything looks yellowish, like if it was filmed using tungsten lights and not fixed afterwards. More amateurism or just poor creative choice.
The action was quite lame, cliché, poorly choreographed and shoot, I don't remember a single one that I liked, and there were some serious continuity issues that felt confusing when Chris and the other guy get attacked fist time in the mansion. (not a real spoiler here, that's obvious to happen, right?)
Now for what I give some credit to this movie, is for the effort on (at least trying) to keep the atmosphere, setting and characters of the game, including some of the classic monsters.
The first minutes after the orphanage scene were good actually, a good pre-first scene of the game RE2, I really liked it, with the truck, the dog... But as soon as Leon appears, it totally spoiled everything.
And the mansion! Along with Chris Redfield casting (the best one, I wish they did a better effort casting all the rest) the mansion was nailed in terms of atmosphere and look, it totally brought me back to my memories playing RE 1, 2 and 3. It was pretty wasted though, I do appreciate that the keys and secret doors and stuff like that from the game appear here, but all that was poorly implemented and the story just drags making no sense. To be honest, half of what was going on, I only understood because I know how the game goes and this was following that line, but the story didn't feel solid at any point as a movie.
The CGI was quite mediocre, but didn't ruin the movie for me, and it gave the classic monsters from the game the chance to be there.
What else to say, looking to the other movies this director and writer has, I'm not surprised this was a bad movie, I'm only sad and disappointed that I'll have to keep waiting for a good RE adaptation, if this one didn't just kill the franchise.
I'd be surprised if any sequels are made for this mess, it looks like the director is hopeful, seeing the after credits scene. If so, I hope someone else picks up on directing and writing and they change Leon's actor.
