I have a lot of things to say about this, having just finished the show. I'll start what some thoughts I had before watching it.
I usually don't mind race swaps unless it's obvious baiting, Wesker would certainly be the last character I'd race swap in this franchise due to the connotations he's had since RE1R and 0, but I wasnt too bothered by it, and Reddick is a nice actor. So that was ok by me. Making him a "loving" father and having him be alive was a bit surprising (I do think Wesker is somehow alive in the games but thats another story). Having teenagers as main characters was a huge concern for me, and I was pretty sure I'd like the future timeline more since apocalyptic RE is something I always wanted to see.
So it was a huge surprise to me when I actually watched it, because I really liked the 2022 timeline while I found the future storyline to be bland and boring. At least in the later episodes.
A huge reason I didn't like those last few episodes is due to Ella Balinska, I have nothing against her and I certainly think she has the physique to be an action star, but she was wooden and had 0 chemistry with both her husband and her daughter. I do not know if its her fault or the directors/writers fault, probably hers honestly since I liked the character as written, I liked how she was unlikable at times, made some really bad choices and wasn't annoyingly unstoppable like Jovovich in her films.
The character had a lot of weight and she just wasn't good enough in my opinion. She's more of an Arnie than a Sly is what I'm trying to say. She would be a good fit for Fast and Furious (I dont say this trying to be mean, I love those movies).
The 2022 timeline however had me hooked, the teen versions of Billie (young Billie is my favorite character in the show) and Jade, Reddick, Nuñez, the Mexican reporter trying to uncover the truth only to meet his unavoidable demise, all of that was good and I always wanted to see more only to have the temptation to look at my phone whenever we went back to the future.
I also liked the explanation given to the Wesker mistery, I thought it was something that could absolutely happen in the games, and the not-very-smart version of Wesker, Bert, was fantastic.
But, while I enjoyed the 2022 storyline and I think there's potential here for a good show, it really wasn't great, and I don't know if I would've finished the show if it wasn't called Resident Evil. Even at its best, Resident Evil isn't great, and it's a damn shame, because clearly the show had a good budget and some very talented people attached, and the franchise has a lot of potential in both the stories that we already know and the ones we don't. Which brings me to my final thoughts.
Who did they make this for? People that know nothing about the games might be lost and there's not enough exposition. People that love the games are mostly sick and tired of having RE movies that feel nothing like RE, with the WS Anderson movies being the stupidest thing I've ever watched, full of laughable action, terrible acting and insulting use of the game characters, and WTRC deciding, for some reason I'll never understand, to mix the plots of the first two games into one 100 minutes movie, all of that while changing very important traits of both Leon and Wesker.
Resident Evil is not a franchise that has been fully explored on film, so why keep making things that are so different from what everyone likes about the game? We've had three live action Spider-Men, a very popular cartoon and a lot of comics, so of course it makes sense to make an animated movie about a different person being Spider-Man, aided by some whacky and silly alternate Spider-People.
But we still haven't had a true Resident Evil adaptation, and they MUST have known fans would react to this negatively. They run focus groups all the time, they know what we watch, what we like and what both the twitter liberal audience and the edgy 4chan audience like. And I just can't think who they wanted to be the target audience for this.
Still, if you go in with an open mind, I think there might be something you'll enjoy here if you're an RE fan. But for 8 hours, you won't stop thinking "when will they get it right?".
Maybe in season 2, if they're lucky enough to get one and smart enough to know their audience.
I usually don't mind race swaps unless it's obvious baiting, Wesker would certainly be the last character I'd race swap in this franchise due to the connotations he's had since RE1R and 0, but I wasnt too bothered by it, and Reddick is a nice actor. So that was ok by me. Making him a "loving" father and having him be alive was a bit surprising (I do think Wesker is somehow alive in the games but thats another story). Having teenagers as main characters was a huge concern for me, and I was pretty sure I'd like the future timeline more since apocalyptic RE is something I always wanted to see.
So it was a huge surprise to me when I actually watched it, because I really liked the 2022 timeline while I found the future storyline to be bland and boring. At least in the later episodes.
A huge reason I didn't like those last few episodes is due to Ella Balinska, I have nothing against her and I certainly think she has the physique to be an action star, but she was wooden and had 0 chemistry with both her husband and her daughter. I do not know if its her fault or the directors/writers fault, probably hers honestly since I liked the character as written, I liked how she was unlikable at times, made some really bad choices and wasn't annoyingly unstoppable like Jovovich in her films.
The character had a lot of weight and she just wasn't good enough in my opinion. She's more of an Arnie than a Sly is what I'm trying to say. She would be a good fit for Fast and Furious (I dont say this trying to be mean, I love those movies).
The 2022 timeline however had me hooked, the teen versions of Billie (young Billie is my favorite character in the show) and Jade, Reddick, Nuñez, the Mexican reporter trying to uncover the truth only to meet his unavoidable demise, all of that was good and I always wanted to see more only to have the temptation to look at my phone whenever we went back to the future.
I also liked the explanation given to the Wesker mistery, I thought it was something that could absolutely happen in the games, and the not-very-smart version of Wesker, Bert, was fantastic.
But, while I enjoyed the 2022 storyline and I think there's potential here for a good show, it really wasn't great, and I don't know if I would've finished the show if it wasn't called Resident Evil. Even at its best, Resident Evil isn't great, and it's a damn shame, because clearly the show had a good budget and some very talented people attached, and the franchise has a lot of potential in both the stories that we already know and the ones we don't. Which brings me to my final thoughts.
Who did they make this for? People that know nothing about the games might be lost and there's not enough exposition. People that love the games are mostly sick and tired of having RE movies that feel nothing like RE, with the WS Anderson movies being the stupidest thing I've ever watched, full of laughable action, terrible acting and insulting use of the game characters, and WTRC deciding, for some reason I'll never understand, to mix the plots of the first two games into one 100 minutes movie, all of that while changing very important traits of both Leon and Wesker.
Resident Evil is not a franchise that has been fully explored on film, so why keep making things that are so different from what everyone likes about the game? We've had three live action Spider-Men, a very popular cartoon and a lot of comics, so of course it makes sense to make an animated movie about a different person being Spider-Man, aided by some whacky and silly alternate Spider-People.
But we still haven't had a true Resident Evil adaptation, and they MUST have known fans would react to this negatively. They run focus groups all the time, they know what we watch, what we like and what both the twitter liberal audience and the edgy 4chan audience like. And I just can't think who they wanted to be the target audience for this.
Still, if you go in with an open mind, I think there might be something you'll enjoy here if you're an RE fan. But for 8 hours, you won't stop thinking "when will they get it right?".
Maybe in season 2, if they're lucky enough to get one and smart enough to know their audience.