Parents' Guide to Resident Evil

The prolific zombie trend's latest entry, Resident Evil, generally puts a fresh spin on the tired formula, but still relies a bit too heavily on familiar, brain-craving tropes.The enormous popularity of The Walking Dead has seen the zombie sub-genre spread like, well, a flesh-eating virus, which is both good and bad news. This show's present day timeline smartly peels back the curtain on evil pharmaceutical giant Umbrella Corporation and its lead scientist, Albert Wesker. Wesker and Umbrella are often reduced to one-note baddies in the Resident Evil games, but the series digs deep into the former's evil deeds and presents the latter -- richly performed by Reddick -- as a complex, layered character, whose motives are maybe more morally grey than outright sinister. The fact he's also presented as a caring, albeit distracted, dad to a pair of troubled teen daughters further adds to his nuanced take on the character. The series doesn't hold up quite as well in 2036, however, where his daughter Jade, now an adult researcher, finds herself battling both Umbrella and the brain-hungry hordes. The future narrative isn't bad, and actually features some of the show's best action scenes, but it too often feels like familiar, undead-apocalypse fare. Overall, Resident Evil does right by the games it's based on, offering a far more engaging take than the franchise's many films, but it still doesn't go far enough to evolve a sub-genre that's beginning to feel as fresh as a rotting corpse.