Resident Evil Movie Becomes Highest-Rated Video Game Adaptation on Rotten Tomatoes

Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil film is a hit with critics. The movie currently sits at a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the highest-rated video game movie on the site. According to Rotten Tomatoes’ Video Game Movies, Ranked by Tomatometer list, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is in second, and Werewolves Within is in third, both at 86%. There are only three video game movies with a Certified Fresh rating, meaning they pass a specific percentage threshold and have a required number of reviews.

After these first three entries, only six video game movies on the list hold positive Tomatometer scores. The Angry Birds Movie 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, Gran Turismo, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Mortal Kombat II range from 64% to 72%.

The Tomatometer represents the percentage of critics who gave a movie a favorable review. The Rotten Tomatoes list excludes films that lack at least 20 reviews from theatrical releases. Other films exist outside these parameters. For instance, Exit 8, an adaptation of the game of the same name, holds a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score across 176 reviews. Even so, Resident Evil leads the competition.

Until now, video game adaptations fared much better on television than in theaters. Great TV shows include Cyberpunk: Edgerunners at 100%, Arcane at 100%, Fallout at 93%, The Last of Us at 96%, Castlevania at 94%, and Nier: Automata Ver1.1a.

Why is the film so highly rated?

The movie delivers a tightly crafted 90 minutes of gross-out sequences, tense moments, and genuine hilarity. The film prioritizes being a good movie over being lore-accurate. It does not feature familiar characters, but that choice works in its favor because the movie emulates the games’ appeal as the protagonist faces one terrible situation after another. Zach Cregger, who previously directed Barbarian and Weapons, drops in humorous homages without requiring an encyclopedic knowledge of the lore. General audiences will find out how they feel about the movie when it officially opens in theaters on Sept. 18.

Source: Polygon