Warning: Spoilers For Netflix's Resident Evil
The second season of Netflix's Resident Evil is setting itself up to introduce more characters from the games, but it's in danger of repeating the same mistake as the Milla Jovovich movies. The Resident Evil video games and the live-action movies feel like two very distinct franchises. While the games have had plenty of action-heavy outings, the series is best known for helping popularise the survival horror genre. The films, on the other hand, became increasingly focused on both breaking away from the source material and adding bombastic action sequences.
Purists of the franchise largely disliked this direction, but there's little arguing with the results. Despite bad reviews for the majority of the Milla Jovovich-fronted Resident Evil films, the saga collectively grossed over $1.2 billion worldwide. Netflix's Resident Evil is the latest live-action iteration, with the TV show largely breaking away from the games - though they're still counted as backstory - and it was a streaming success for Netflix. Unfortunately, it was met with mixed to poor critical notices.
It should be noted Netflix's Resident Evil has plenty of vocal defenders, but the critical backlash against it is hard to deny. The season ended with the teenage versions of sisters Jade and Billie Wesker setting out to meet Ada Wong, a spy character featured prominently in the game series. A big critique of the show is that it felt like an in-name only adaptation, but with the Ada cliffhanger, Resident Evil season 2 is setting itself up to be more faithful. However, this move will likely see the Netflix outing make the same character error as the Jovovich movies.
The Resident Evil Movies Used Game Characters As Props
The Jovovich movies very much placed the actor front and center, and they were a great showcase for her action hero skills. However, with each ing entry, the Resident Evil films felt less and less connected with the source material. They pulled monsters and settings from the games, but little else. The Jovovich era would also add gaming characters to each sequel to appease fans, but instead of feeling like faithful live-action depictions, they instead felt like actors in cosplay. The renditions of Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine or Leon Kennedy may have worn similiar costumes or wielded identical props, but the movies had little interest in either fleshing them out or even giving them cool stuff to do.
The Netflix's Resident Evil - which featured some classic game monsters - will take the about the show into and season 2 will be a big improvement, but bringing in classic characters wouldn't necessarily be the fix some are hoping for.