Resident Evil - Limited Edition 4K Ultra HD SteelBook Collection

As I already reviewed all of these films a scant three years ago, I’m going to let my main review stand. The films remain a very uneven franchise with many highs and several lows - but they’re all entertaining. The sort of action/horror hijinks that only Paul W.S. Anderson could deliver again and again. 

From the 2020 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Box Set Review:

I love the Resident Evil games. Since the Playstation One, each game has been the primary reason why I upgraded from one system to the next. I used to rent a PS1 from my local Hollywood Video over long school holiday breaks and would always grab the first Resident Evil game. Sadly, I didn't have a memory card so I would always have to start over from square one every time, but I didn't care because that game was so much fun. Bad voice acting and complete with cheesy live-action cinematics and alternate ending unlocks depending on how well you played, I couldn't get enough of the game so I turned in my old 16-bit systems to get the latest and greatest gaming technology. Hell, I even upgraded my family's graphics card so I could play the PC game version! 

My love for this game series arrived nearly day and date to when I discovered Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. I was flush with Zombie Fever throughout my teens and as each game came along I devoured it accordingly. So I was over the moon when the first rumors of a movie franchise started to bloom with George Romero attached to write and direct. Unfortunately, that version of the movie didn't happen. Opting to bring on Event Horizon helmer Paul (not that Anderson) Anderson, Sony and Capcom went with a different approach to the material with a movie that played homage to the original game but went in its own direction. While I would have loved to see Romero's take, I gotta admit I'm a fan of this first film. 

I'm not one who loves literal-to-the-page adaptations so I appreciated where Anderson spun the material into different directions and actually opened up the field a bit beyond just rehashing gameplay. Milla Jovovich showed she could lead a movie like this as Alice offering a vulnerable anchor for the audience who could also kung-fu kick a zombie dog into oblivion. With the teasing finale of a desolated Raccoon City, that first film left open the perfect window for a sequel. Then we got Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

I still don't quite know what I think of this movie. There's time I really enjoy watching it - for this review was one of those times - but it really hasn't aged well. The first half, despite some goofy bits, works well. It pulls scenes and characters from Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, it showcases the fall of Raccoon City, and admittedly Mike Epps even made me laugh! Then right about the time that Alice rides through a church window on a motorcycle to take out a trio of cheap-looking CGI lickers, the movie kinda goes off the rails. And in a way, so does the rest of the franchise. 

By the time we get to Resident Evil: Extinction - it's perfectly clear that no matter who directed it, with Paul W.S. Anderson writing and producing, the series had no clear path to a finale. Each subsequent entry feels piled on one another with alternating satisfying and diminishing results. Where Extinction and Afterlife were entertaining, by the time we got to Retribution the movies had just become the current video games that devolved away from the survival horror puzzle creepy features to frantic button-smashing action cinematics leaving The Final Chapter to clumsily clunk its way to a conclusion that I'm still not sure I understand how it works, but I'm going to lave alone because it hurts my head to think about. 

And now Netflix is in production on a reboot television series that looks and feels like it's going back to the roots of the original game. Or at least the remake of the original game. New teases of the cast along with meticulous recreations of fan-favorite locations have been rolling out the last couple weeks. Whether or not it's any good remains to be seen. (I saw it, it was a hot mess as was the reboot film, Welcome to Raccoon City)

For now, this was a fun project. I hadn't ever tried digging through all of the Resident Evil movies in such proximity to one another. The continuity of the movies is held by the same clip holding the girl at the beginning of Cliffhanger - but that's okay. Milla is a game player here and holds the series together. Paul W.S. Anderson maintains a consistent energy to these films even if they don't approach the steady creepiness of his masterpiece Event Horizon. Each of these movies is entertaining in its own weird little way - the first film is legit the best of the series - but even The Final Chapter offers some genuine entertainment value. It all depends on if this franchise is your particular brand of spread or not. If you're only a fan of a couple of these, a full box set may not be the best route even at the low sale prices hitting stores this holiday season.

Resident Evil - 4/5

Resident Evil: Apocalypse - 2.5/5

Resident Evil: Extinction - 3.5/5

Resident Evil: Afterlife - 3/5

Resident Evil: Retribution - 2/5

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter - 2/5 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 

Sony packs up their biggest video game movie franchise and gives it a new sheen for the Resident Evil 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Limited Edition. All six films are now housed in a new deluxe SteelBook set. Each SteelBook case is adorned with an image of series star Mila Jovovich unique to that particular film. All of the SteelBooks are housed in a large metal slipbox with foam dividers to make sure the individual SteelBooks don’t rub on each other. Each film is given a BD-66 for the 4K with the same BD-50s recycled for 1080p versions and bonus features. Overall it’s a stylish set, the slipbox is pretty slick looking, but I wish the individual SteelBook cases used the original theatrical poster art. I mean, I love Milla, but these aren’t exactly iconic or eye-catching images to represent each film. 

After enjoying three peaceful years of HDR10 bliss, we’re back in the zombie apocalypse for new Dolby Vision HDR encodes of each film. If you haven’t been paying attention, Sony has been working hard at updating each of their back catalog releases with Dolby Vision encodes and the results have been solid, but not always a necessary upgrade over what we already had in the collection. 

In the case of the Resident Evil films, we again see some modest overall improvements. Specifically, the first three entries that were actually shot on film Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and Resident Evil: Extinction see the most notable improvements. With a slightly higher bitrate to work with, I felt like fine details and textures were much cleaner looking with a tighter less noisy film grain structure. Each film dealt with grain a little differently but I felt like the extra bits and the Dolby Vision grading gave the image some breathing room. The color grading hasn’t changed dramatically, but again the extra attention to black levels and whites is notable for a very appealing image. Dodgy CGI is still, well, dodgy, but without completely redoing those effects shots there’s not much to be done there. Not exactly night and day improvements for these three but you can feel the improvements the most here. 4.5/5 for those three.

Resident Evil: Afterlife is still the weak link of the bunch. Those CGI-heavy 3-D intended shots still hold this one back in 2-D. I couldn’t find any notes if this film picked up a new 4K digital intermediate or not, but it does look a little better. The bitrate improvements might not be as notable, but I felt the Dolby Vision grading helped the film’s darkest scenes against those bright hot whites. Likewise, not night-and-day better and not enough so to trigger a 4K double dip for fans, but still better all the same. 4/5 

Of the two 3-D focused films, Resident Evil: Retribution is again the clear winner on 2-D 4K UHD. Shot on better equipment and a higher resolution you can feel a little more care and attention went into this one and it shows with the new Dolby Vision encoding. Again the bitrate might not be a leaps and bounds improvement but it’s enough to give some textures a little more care and attention. Noise is less intrusive and those black levels are much better defined. The depth isn’t as good as the Blu-ray 3-D version (obviously), but this image still stands out nicely. 4.5/5 

Then we come to the hyper-over-edited Resident Evil: The Final Chapter which also looks better with Dolby Vision, but when your edits barely last two seconds, it’s difficult to appreciate the overall aesthetic. Given that, any improvement in details can be difficult to ascertain I did feel like the image was a titsch sharper and a little clearer. Black levels for this one are the most notable improvement I could appreciate. Deep and inky it gave the film a better sense of depth and shadow grading than the previous release. Again not night and day, and not worth a double dip on its own, but still something to appreciate even if it doesn’t really move my scoring needle above 4/5 

On the audio side, each film carries over the same great Dolby Atmos track and where applicable legacy DTS-HD MA 5.1 tracks. And they’re both still great audio options, but those Atmos tracks are still bangers. I’ll leave my previous comments here for each film since I didn’t feel the need to change my mind in that arena.

Resident Evil always had a crushing and intense audio presence thanks to the Marilyn Manson/Marco Beltrami score and the audio design that often smashed dialog while the groans of zombies filled the soundstage. I'm pleased to report that oppressive sound design is still alive and well in Atmos - only better. Dialog is still cleanly heard but the surrounding audio elements, like when the strike team enters the mansion or the first wave of zombies attacks is terrific stuff. Overheads get some distinct action but they're really used to space out the mix and provide an even more distinct location atmosphere. 5/5

Apocalypse sounded just plain awful on Blu-ray when it first came out in my opinion. I've never really loved the movie but I loved the sound design and until this Atmos mix there's been nothing to compare to the theater experience. Now the mix sounds and feels big. When the S#!t hits the fan and Umbrella closes the last highway out of the city, that crowd is a wonderful mix of front/center, surround, and vertical effects that come together with terrific results. When Nemesis fires his big rocket launcher and the projectile flies across the soundscape mixing overhead and side channels - it's a great effect! 5/5

Extinction has an equally impressive Atmos mix as Apocalypse but for different reasons. Apocalypse was a close and claustrophobic city movie where Extinction is a wide-open road movie and it actually feels open. The spacing of sound elements compared to the original DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix is immediately appreciable. The crow attack is a particular highlight with the full soundstage employed with terrific vertical usage and for closed combat action, the dog attack scene early on is another great moment for this new mix to give your system a workout. Dialog is clean and clear throughout without issues and levels are spot on. 5/5

Afterlife warrants a lot of criticism for aping The Matrix during the opening fight sequences where the Alice clones invade the Japanese Umbrella Corp. underground lab. This is true visually but it's a welcome treat sonically speaking. That opening fifteen-minutes is wall-to-wall sound with amazing results with bullets zipping through the sides and rears and giving some distinct overhead action. When the movie moves to the north and the prison setting it becomes pretty basic. The extra vertical space helps add dimension but unless some big action sequence is happening the mix is actually on the bland side. But, since this movie is just one string of boss battles, there's very little downtime and this Atmos mix keeps the pace perfectly. 5/5

Retribution may well be a hot mess of a movie in terms of story and structure - but it makes out with a terrific Atmos mix! This is a great example of how overhead or upward-firing speakers can deliver terrific action to a mix with the sides and rears filling up any given scene. This is a movie with a lot of overhead action going on and from the original DTS mix to the Atmos track, I feel like this one earned the biggest kick in that regard. If it's not a bullet it's rain falling and the effects land with pitch-perfect dimensionality. Levels are spot on - not that you really need to hear the dialog for this one, but there's no trouble there. 5/5

The Final Chapter again isn't a great movie but it cleaned itself up considerably after Retribution and delivers an Atmos mix to match. With the frantic and kinetic action sequences, this mix keeps the pace beautifully. Whether Alice is fighting on a motorcycle or on top of an assault transport shooting stabbing or crunching zombies, this mix is loud and aggressive keeping front, side, rear, and overhead channels active and moving at virtually all times. While this is an aggressive mix, it thankfully doesn't sound overworked allowing some breathing room so you can appreciate the activity when it fires up. I may not love this conclusion, but it sounds fantastic. 5/5 

And like the last set, no new bonus features were assembled for this new SteelBook collection. UPDATE: Missed a few new extras that were added for Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. These extra features were imports from discs that were issued overseas so they're technically fresh arrivals here stateside. We pick up a quick little featurette about Paul W.S. Anderson directing the final film, a couple character pieces, but the meatiest bit is the Script to Screen: The Making of Resident Evil: The Final chapter. None of these pieces are all that extensive, most only lasting a few minutes but they're worth checking out

NEW Resident Evil: The Final Chapter 4K UHD extras:

• Directing the Final Chapter (HD 5:02)
• Rola as Cobalt (HD 3:34)
• From Saints to Sinners (HD 8:45)
• From Script to Screen: The Making of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (HD 9:55)

Everything available for previous releases has been ported over here with the included 1080p Blu-ray discs. Click on the links for those details for the previous extras:

• Resident Evil
• Resident Evil: Apocalypse
• Resident Evil: Extinction
• Resident Evil: Afterlife
• Resident Evil: Retribution
• Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

The original Resident Evil franchise certainly was a bumpy ride, but a fun one. You’d be hard-pressed to argue these were six of the best films in cinema history, but it’s hard to argue against their entertainment value. If you’re a fan that is. I don’t love each entry, there are some notable low spots, but they’re worth the watch every now and again. Thanks to Sony’s love for Dolby Vision and SteelBook upgrades of their previous releases, I got to dig into these films all over again and that'll carry me through for another couple of years. The results of the new HDR grading may vary from one film to the next but overall they do look better - especially the first three entries. Are these improvements enough for a double dip? No, I’d say they are not. However, if you haven’t added them to the collection yet, these discs offer a superior presentation. I do wish the SteelBook art had been more inventive and interesting and these films really should be released as singles instead of franchise box sets. All the same, if you’re aiming to purchase the whole series, consider this Recommended even if that price point is a little steep. 

Order your copy of Resident Evil 6-Movie Collection Limited Edition SteelBook