Film reviews: When Resident Evil met Shaun The Sheep and Bad Apples

RESIDENT EVIL (15, 94 mins) ****

Director Zach Cregger and actor Austin Abrams follow Weapons (2025) with the latest film in the horror franchise based on Capcom’s hugely popular video game.

At last, it’s eighth time lucky for me. I didn’t just like this film; for the most part, I loved it – especially in IMAX.

This is a video game adaptation that’s all the better for feeling much more like a wholly original movie. Derivative, yes, but enjoyably so.

Especially as, instead of a screeching score saddled with meaningless jump-scare edits, you can marvel at how the filmmakers have paired so many stunningly realised snow scenes with rare sound-design intelligence, while keeping the running time to an admirable 94 minutes.

Despite his script featuring almost nothing but the same expletive used over and over, Abrams is utterly convincing throughout – he doesn’t need to be the world’s tallest actor to deliver an energetic, Michael J. Fox-style ‘it could be us there’ performance as a transplant courier called Bryan.

Like the much more muscular Reacher star Alan Ritchson in last week’s thriller Runner, Bryan’s job is to deliver an organ for transplant as fast as possible.

But setting off without snow chains en route to a hospital in Raccoon City is always going to be asking for trouble, even before events take a sinister turn during the cleverly extended pre-credits sequence.

As a play on the horrors of Covid and more, Resident Evil is a thriller crossed with an insight into the possible horrors that bad actors with AI tools might deliver at large in a zombified future.

This Resident Evil reboot will make you laugh out loud, recoil in horror and think. Quite the achievement for something this daft and gratuitous.

SHAUN THE SHEEP: THE BEAST OF MOSSY BOTTOM (U, 80 mins) ****

Baa baa Shaun the sheep, have you any jokes? Yes sir, yes sir, three movies full.

Originally spun off from an appearance in Wallace & Gromit’s A Close Shave (1995), the geniuses at Britain’s own Aardman Animations have since woven the character through seven TV series, and this is now his third stop-motion feature film, too.

At this rate, Shaun will soon deserve a cloven-hoofed place on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

Pixar has delivered a fifth Toy Story movie this year, but the handmade qualities of Shaun the Sheep keep offering that little bit extra through the magic of clay meeting play.

Following on from Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) and Farmageddon (2019), The Beast of Mossy Bottom is a U-rated comedy horror introduction to Halloween for youngsters to get their sheep’s-milk teeth into.

The ever-mischievous, science-loving Shaun tries to create a potion that will revive a secret pumpkin patch inadvertently destroyed by Mossy Bottom’s Farmer.

But when Farmer thinks it’s a hair-growth serum that will restore his barnet, he becomes a Bigfoot-style beast who will scare the local townsfolk.

Blessed with the kind of attention to detail that Aardman excels at, and with enough vivid colours to embarrass a Dulux sheepdog’s colour palette, The Beast of Mossy Bottom completes a hat-trick of cinematic delights.

Children will love the kind of imagination and inventiveness for which Gerry and Sylvia Anderson were renowned with their ‘Supermarionation’ hits such as Thunderbirds.

But there’s plenty for accompanying adults to enjoy, too, especially a gloriously gentle nod to Psycho’s notorious shower scene.

BAD APPLES (15, 100 mins) ***

Born in the Bronx to Irish parents, Saoirse Ronan is one of my favourite actresses – not least because the now 32-year-old has already had three fully deserved best actress Oscar nominations at the expense of chasing the Marvel money. Upon such talents does the future of the industry really lie.

From Atonement (2007) to Brooklyn (2015), Lady Bird (2017), Little Women (2019) and The Outrun (2024), Ronan has rarely put a foot wrong, save for the disappointing Lovely Bones (2009).

Here, she’s back on top form as a primary school teacher so frustrated with a troubled pupil that she holds him hostage in her basement.

As you do, when the school’s head tells you that it’s your job to cope with difficult children – surely every teacher’s biggest challenge and/or nightmare, never mind the feelings of fellow pupils keen to learn.

It’s deeply unfortunate that the core of the plot is far too close to Stephen Graham’s black comedy psychological thriller Good Boy earlier this year, which had a similar premise of holding a young male hostage against his will.

Despite Ronan’s performance alongside an impressive debut from Eddie Waller as 11-year-old Danny (she’ll doubtless have called upon her almost-as-young appearance in Atonement to school him), Graham’s film casts a more malevolent shadow from which Bad Apples cannot quite escape.

Especially as the longer the story goes on, the more unduly far-fetched it seems, with the abduction element in grave danger of introducing a very sour taste.

Based on a Swedish novel and directed by Swede Jonatan Etzler, don’t miss the cider-making beginning – it’s an extraordinarily cinematic West Country experience, with thousands of apples all playing juicy supporting roles.

Reviewing films in Birmingham since 1989, Graham Young is a former UK Regional Film Journalist of the Year and three-time runner-up.