Netflix's Resident Evil Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

1. The Totally Mediocre Villains

What is any Resident Evil IP without some entertainingly memorable villains? Sadly this is another area where this TV show falls down hard.

The primary villain is Umbrella's cunning CEO Evelyn Marcus, and though Paola Núñez does a solid job playing the sexy, feisty businesswoman impossibly committed to Umbrella's growth, she's ultimately a pretty one-note antagonist.

Rarely does Evelyn shade outside the lines of a generic Big Pharma mogul, which for a franchise that's prided itself on colourful and cartoonish bad guys seems positively banal by comparison.

Other supporting villains and foils largely don't touch the sides, sadly, and even the potentially crowd-pleasing appeal of seeing the series' menagerie of grotesque monsters on-screen feels half-heartedly fulfilled, given their only occasional presence throughout.

These gripes accepted, though, the show isn't all bad, and so here's what it actually gets right...