Although we are all in love with Resident Evil Village, with its variety of vampires, werewolves and other horrors, Resident Evil is not just a series of horror games, it is also a series of horror movies. ridiculous action. These absolute treasures of cinema are often looked down on, thanks to their cheesy presentation and how far they stray from the games from which they borrow their names and certain characters. But if you just want to watch some fun zombie action movies, you won't find many zombie movies that are this explosive and just plain entertaining. For a while, I had only seen a few of these movies, stopping after the fourth, mostly out of total ignorance that Resident Evil: Retribution and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter existed. But over the weekend, as I was looking forward to the new game to quench my thirst for Resident Evil's unique brand of campy horror, I came across a Blu Ray collection of all six movies, and sat down and watched them all. I saw them all in one day. Watching these movies in a frenzy is probably the most disturbing thing I've done in a long time, but now I can come up with a definitive and completely objective (read: not at all objective) rating of all six films. I was tempted to list them all as number one, mainly because I like them all in their own way. There are likely plenty of spoilers to come, if you really care about the story of these movies. I can't help it, sorry.
6. Resident Evil: Retribution
Resident Evil: Retribution is the fifth film in the series, and it looks like they're running out of ideas. Alice finds herself at an Umbrella facility in Siberia, where she must fight her way through virtual biomes where the evil society has tested their biological weapons alongside Ada Wong. At the same time, there is a backup team, including fan-favorite character Leon S. Kennedy, although he only marginally resembles this character. Of all the Resident Evil movies, Retribution is the most like a video game, and not even a Resident Evil game. It just feels like these characters are fighting each other through the game's levels, with ridiculous boss fights thrown in for good measure. And, since they're all like virtual biomes or whatever, there are clones of old fan-favorite characters running around. It's an absolutely bizarre movie, and probably the worst, but it's still great if you're not looking for something that makes sense.
5. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
By the end of this franchise, the story is so messy that there was no way to tie it all together in a way that wouldn't be extremely cheesy and fun to watch. Iain Glen is back and we first meet him as a preacher driving around a giant tank leading an army of zombies. Don't worry, there are multiple versions of Iain Glen, as this is a late-era Resident Evil movie and clones are everywhere. Yeah. Either way, mischief ensues and Alice finds herself partnered with Claire Redfield, another returning character, and a group of survivors, fighting off the army. It also turns out that this group of survivors are literally the last people alive, and our heroes must dive into the hive from the first film to save the human race from extinction. And there, they can fight bioweapons, clones, and more. If that seems incomprehensible, that's because it is, but that's the charm of these movies.
4. Resident Evil: Extinction
Extinction is basically the day of the dead for George Romero, but not that great. Zombies have taken over the entire world and a group of survivors survive in a bus trailer. There are even Umbrella scientists who inject zombies with serum to try to make them tame, just like the classic 1985 zombie, though their motive is a bit more nefarious. But while Extinction sounds a lot like Day of the Dead, it of course has its own little tricks. Alice now has psychic powers, and Umbrella follows her via satellite. The movie even ends with Alice killing the big bad scientist who transforms into a giant monster and finds a clone army of her own. Too bad we rang right away!
3.Resident Evil: Afterlife
Resident Evil: Afterlife is everywhere. It begins with an army of Alice clones storming an Umbrella facility, where they are all killed. And then Albert Wesker, introduced as a hologram in Extinction, injects Alice with a serum that removes all of her superpowers. Then the time of the movie passes and Alice flies in a plane along the west coast of the United States, looking for the friends of hers who survived the last movie. Then we go to Alaska, find a friend, then head back to California and land on top of a prison. But Prison is probably the tensest of these movies since the first two, as there are zombies that can tunnel underneath and there's no way to escape from prison. They do come out in the end, but this part of the movie is actually a bit annoying. However, this tone completely disappears by the end of the film. Even though they started the movie trying to get rid of the superpowers and the clones, they couldn't resist doing the nasty stuff at the end, but honestly, I wouldn't have done it any other way.
2.Resident Evil
Most people consider the first Resident Evil their favorite, and it's not really hard to see why. The movie is extremely well paced as the team of Umbrella soldiers dive deep into the hive to see why the deadly AI killed everyone. It is perhaps the most realistic movie in the series and it also has an amazing soundtrack. This movie set the stage for the entire series to come, and to this day remains arguably the best video game movie ever made, aside from perhaps Sonic the Hedgehog.