Why Maxine From Resident Evil Looks So Familiar

The first chunk of Zach Cregger's "Resident Evil," a horror film based on the popular Capcom video game series (you can read /Film's review here), focuses mainly on the plight of Bryan (the excellent Austin Abrams), a beleaguered medical courier who is tasked with delivering a sealed package to the mountain town of Raccoon City in the middle of the night. During his drive, Bryan accidentally hits a woman standing in the middle of the icy road. She doesn't die. This kicks off an eerie, prolonged passage wherein Bryan begins encountering unusual, mutated people with tentacles and a habit of not dying, forcing him to run from farmhouses to vans to stay away from the attacking monsters.

Bryan, it should be noted, is no hero. He panics often, and he makes a lot of unwise decisions when faced with life-or-death situations. When he finally does get access to firearms, he doesn't necessarily know how to use them, and he's a lousy shot. Over the course of the movie, Bryan does indeed begin to become more competent as "Resident Evil" descends (ascends?) into comedically splattery chaos. He is never, however, a steely, determined badass.

Instead, the steely determined badass character appears later in the movie, when Bryan is picked up by a nervous scientist named Paul (Paul Walter Hauser) and his stalwart, capable partner Maxine, who actually does know how to use firearms. Maxine is played by professional boxer Kali Reis, who has been fighting and winning matches since the age of 15. (An online Women's Boxing Archive has a handy biography.) TV and movie fans, though, might recognize her for some of her previous acting roles, notably from "True Detective: Night Country." She was also in this year's abysmal cyber-thriller "Mercy," among other things.

Kali Reis first moved from the boxing ring into movies when she starred in and co-wrote the story for the low-budget 2021 thriller "Catch the Fair One." In that film, she plays Kaylee, a former boxer (natch) who infiltrates an insidious human trafficking ring to search for her kidnapped sister. She poses as a potential victim and deliberately gets kidnapped in order to learn more about the criminals. The movie wasn't any kind of huge hit, but it was quite well received by critics.

Then Reis appeared in Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire's 2023 thriller "Asphalt City" opposite Sean Penn, Tye Sheridan, Michael Pitt, and Mike Tyson (!). There, she tackled an even more intense role as Nia, a woman with a heroin addiction who has just had her first child. Reis followed that with her turn in the well-received 2024 "True Detective" season "Night Country," playing the season's co-lead opposite Jodie Foster. Her character, an Alaskan trooper named Evangeline Navarro, teams up with Foster's character, local police chief Liz Danvers, to investigate the disappearance of eight individuals from a remote Alaskan research station. Reis received an Emmy nomination for her performance, and it can definitely be considered her big break.

As for "Mercy," Reis co-stars as Jaq Diallo, a police officer whose partner, Chris Pratt's Chris Raven, is forced to undergo a machine-automated murder trial in a dystopian A.I.-led future. Reis gets to fly around on drone-like police motorcycles and participate in the film's more active scenes. Meanwhile, Pratt spends most of the movie strapped to a chair.

Kali Reis also appeared in Max Walker-Silverman's 2025 neo-Western "Rebuilding" opposite Josh O'Connor and Amy Madigan. That film is about a group of ranchers who have to rebuild their lives after wildfires devastate their properties.

Perhaps because of her boxing career, Reis projects a natural toughness on screen. Hence, when she appears in "Resident Evil," she's easy to recognize as the movie's action star. She doesn't have a lot of screen time, but she possesses the confidence and steely determination of a leader. The movie stays focused on the wimpier Bryan, but we know we're in good hands with Maxine. One can likely find many Maxine-like badasses throughout the 'Resident Evil" video games on which the film was based. 

Reis fully intends to keep on acting, too. She's set to appear in "Wind River: The Next Chapter," a sequel to the 2017 crime thriller "Wind River." Reis will be joined in the movie's cast by Gil Birmingham, Scott Eastwood, Alan Ruck, and Jason Clarke. She will similarly appear in the upcoming heist TV series "12 12 12" alongside Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan. Her career is definitely on an upswing and shows nothing but promise right now between all that and "Resident Evil."

But acting and boxing aren't her only passions. According to a 2021 profile on Boxing-Social.com, Reis remains involved in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) group. Being a member of the Seaconke Wampanoag tribe, this cause is personal to her and certainly served as the inspiration for "Catch the Fair One."