Resident Evil officially breaks Rotten Tomatoes record
It’s official: Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil movie is a critical acclaim. The film currently boasts a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the site’s highest-rated video game adaptation by a significant margin. According to Rotten Tomatoes’ “Video Game Movies, Ranked by Tomatometer” list, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Werewolves Within are in second and third place, respectively, both with 86%. The list also notes that only three video game adaptations have earned the “Certified Fresh” designation, meaning they have surpassed a certain percentage and received a specific number of reviews.
After these first three entries, only six more video game adaptations receive positive Rotten Tomato ratings: “Angry Birds 2 – The Movie,” “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” “Pokémon Detective Pikachu,” “Gran Turismo,” “Sonic the Hedgehog,” and “Mortal Kombat II.” Their ratings range from 64% to 72%. This short list illustrates just how bad video game adaptations generally are.
To clarify: The Tomatometer score indicates the percentage of critics who gave a film a positive review. This Rotten Tomatoes list excludes films that received fewer than 20 reviews after their theatrical release. However, the Rotten Tomatoes list only includes a small number of films. For example, “Exit 8,” the film adaptation of the game of the same name, has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 91% based on 176 reviews. Despite this, “Resident Evil” is significantly ahead of the competition.
So far, video game adaptations have fared significantly better on the small screen than in cinemas, with great television series such as Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (100% on Rotten Tomatoes), Arcane (100%), Fallout (93%), The Last of Us (96%), Castlevania (94%), Nier: Automata Ver1.1a and many more.
Why does Resident Evil have such high ratings?
Resident Evil offers 90 minutes of gripping entertainment with gruesome scenes, thrilling moments, and genuine humor. Cleverly, the film prioritizes entertainment over absolute accuracy in its backstory. Although no familiar characters appear, this works to its advantage, as the film perfectly captures the appeal of the games by plunging the protagonist from one terrifying situation to the next.
Cregger, who previously directed Resident Evil: Barbarian and Weapons, also sprinkles in numerous humorous references, without requiring encyclopedic knowledge of the backstory. We’ll see how audiences receive the film – it officially premiered in theaters yesterday.
