This overreaching documentary is clearly a passion project for an ill equipped director, who mistakenly makes a great deal of a mundane, standard industry tale.
A company may reach out to several third parties, talk about a license being obtained, where third parties will iterate on the idea over a set period of time, and then the production ceases to move forward for one of a thousand potential reasons. It happens hundreds and thousands of times. It is not a conspiracy or a tragedy. It is not Roger Ebert and Rex Reed slandering Warren Beatty or Faye Dunaway in public media spaces at the request of various executives for several decades.
A standard process is all there is to the story, and no amount of irrelevant talking heads should convince you otherwise. Well, if you're media literate.
If you are media literate, you'll already be aware of the value of Romero's work outside of this incredibly small part of his five decade movie career. Resident Evil matters zilch to Romero or his legacy.
George A Romero remains an incredibly important figure in both independent films and horror films. What he did with his budgets, approach, and societal critiques are indellible and inspirational, with NIght of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead remaining incredible achievements that are still spoken of by the majority of critics, fans, and creatives.
On top of the problems with the concept, the director isn't particularly well equipped to put together an adequate puff piece. Fair play, they have tried to add enough fluffy somewhat flaky presentation (I may have been baking a few minutes ago) to fill out the run time, but this isn't exactly Jodorowsky's Dune. Plus, even that better but also lacking documentary overstates the potential impact of a film which was never made, and only matters to a particularly niche section of a group of obsessives. And I'll restate that I don't need a barrage of irritating talking heads who have no formal links to Romero, Constantin Films, Capcom, talking broad stroke vagueries.
The worst of it all can be found in the break down of the draft against reenacted scenes from the video game. It is very much a first year video essay at college effort. The script is so plain in its references that it's clear as day as is. The visual side of the film is derivative of numerous documentary TV shows, with the reenactments reminiscent of the TV pro-wrestling pseudo-documentary series Dark Side of the Ring.
Neither Romero's script, nor Resident Evil, are a bastion for subtlety or depths of meaningful layers. The project was never going to be in the spirit of Romero's Dead films, which actually do a great deal regarding class, racism, capitalism, and more.
Romero's last version of the Resident Evil script is true to Resident Evil, and Resident Evil isn't nuanced or complicated. If it was, "4 itchy Tasty" and a closet door opening might be a comment on the bonds between cannibalism and repressed sexuality. But it's not. It's someone eating someone as a raw snack and then hiding in a cupboard.
To put it plainer, Romero's advertisement for the Japanese release of Resident Evil 2 speaks to what Resident Evil was to him, and that actually got made! He didn't focus on the anti-corporation & anti-corruption angle of the notes of Resident Evil. His Resi efforts focused on a Fulci like admiration for the creatures and blood.
As a positive note, the massively available Romero script is fun pulp for fans of the original Resident Evil video game. It is a theme park haunted house approach to creatures and monsters you will already know as a fan of the video game.
Watch one of Romero's less known films instead if you want to have a good time. Monkey Shines is a particularly underrated little gem outside of the usual ____ of the Dead suggestions. Plus, it's pulpy and campy as anything, just like the old Resident Evils.
