The Resident Evil movies have never been critical darlings, and the outing that managed a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score is one of the most obscure. Talk of a Resident Evil movie emerged shortly after the record-breaking success of the first two games, but the resulting live-action adaptations deviated massively from the source material. While they brought over key characters, monsters and settings from Capcom's series, they all focused on the journey of Alice (Milla Jovovich), an original character created for the films. Jovovich's movies were hugely successful overseas, but they were all greeted with mixed to bad reviews.
While Rotten Tomatoes should never be considered the final word on a film's reception, the live-action Resident Evil movies have never nabbed a "Fresh" rating. The highest rated was 2017's Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, which closed out the Jovovich run and earned a 37% rating. While the second entry Apocalypse was the closest to the games - being a riff on Resident Evil 3: Nemesis - it ranked the lowest with only 19%. Even the 2021 reboot Welcome To Raccoon City failed to win critics over with a 30% RT score.
Resident Evil: Damnation Had A Good Critical Reception, But It Wasn't Popular
The RT scores for the vast majority of the Resident Evil franchise make for grim reading. That makes the fact 2012's Resident Evil: Damnation earned a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score all the more surprising. This was the second entry in the Resident Evil anime movie series, which are canon with the game series. The story saw Leon S. Kennedy and Ada Wong caught up in a civil war in an Eastern European country, where the government is using bioweapons against rebel fighters.
Resident Evil: Damnation is basically an anime action movie, though it does mix in several horror scenes too. It's a pulpy if somewhat forgettable romp, but at least in comparison to the live-action Resident Evils, there is an attempt to tell a story and flesh out the supporting players. The first anime Degeneration - which reunited Leon and Claire Redfield from the second game - is the only other Resident Evil with a "Fresh" rating, with the film earning a 67% rating.
Why Resident Evil: Damnation's Rotten Tomatoes Score Is So High
Resident Evil: Damnation is somewhat obscure for those only familiar with the live-action films or Netflix's Resident Evil show, and it's not exactly a secret masterpiece. In truth, it appears the 100% rating is simply because the film's Tomatometer is only composed of five reviews - by comparison, The Final Chapter RT score pulls from 103 reviews - many of which seem to be rating it positively in comparison to the other films. Its faithfulness to the games was another mark in its favor. The anime spinoffs show no signs of slowing either, with the fifth outing Death Island due for release sometime in 2023.