The Verge's review of the new Resident Evil film, directed by Zach Cregger, argues that the movie succeeds by prioritising comedy alongside horror, marking a departure from Paul W.S. Anderson's original 2002 adaptation. The reviewer praises the film for stripping the story back to basics and centring it on Bryan, a medical courier invented for the movie rather than a character from Capcom's games, which allows the horror to be experienced through an ordinary civilian's panicked, fumbling reactions rather than trained special agents.

The film follows Bryan as he drives through a winter storm towards Raccoon City on a delivery job, encountering infected, mutating humans along the way. Actor Austin Abrams plays Bryan with a "wide-eyed guilelessness", and his growth from a terrified amateur into someone with sharper survival instincts drives the narrative, echoing the feel of playing a Resident Evil game for the first time. The review highlights the film's indoor, suspense-driven sequences as its strongest moments, while noting that humour is woven throughout to heighten, rather than undercut, the horror.