Resident Evil Review: Welcome to Raccoon City

Resident Evil is, without a doubt, one of the most popular horror video game franchises. The brand, which has been with us for 25 years, tried many times on the silver screen, where it never achieved such success. Director Paul W. S. Anderson made a total of six films, but none of them received fan acclaim. This is mainly due to the fact that the filmmakers moved away from the characters from the games and switched the central role to Alice, played by Milla Jovovich.

However, four years after the release of the last film, another film is released in theaters with the subtitle “Welcome to Raccoon City”. This time it’s a reboot directed by Johannes Roberts. He had a clear goal in making it: to create a film that adhered more to game templates and thus was grateful to the fans. Unfortunately, neither went so well.

• Premiere date: December 2, 2021 (US November 24, 2021)
• Genre: Action, horror
• Director and screenplay: Johannes Roberts

Changes in history

If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll probably be put off by the very idea of ​​a movie. It tells the story of the first two games, although they are not very close to the plot. RE1 takes place in July 1998 and RE2 until the end of September. Connecting RE0 and RE1, which are closely related, would be much more suggested. Even better would be the connection between RE2 and RE3, whose stories even overlap, and the concept would make sense. But Roberts decided otherwise, and we have no choice but to shake our heads. Combining the events of RE1 and RE2 on the same day, he just got into trouble.

This is far from the only change you’ll find in the film. The biggest ones concern the characters themselves, especially Claire Redfield. In the film, she grew up in a raccoon orphanage run by Dr. Birkin, whom she subsequently ran away from. Claire plays a central role in the film, which is somewhat ironic given that she got into it all by accident in the games. But I wouldn’t have such a problem with this change if it didn’t affect other characters.

Another problem is that at the expense of Claire, some characters were lagging behind. This is especially true for Leon, who is one of the most loved by the fans. But in the film, they only made a clown out of him. Yes, he’s new to the police force in Resident Evil 2, but he takes his job very seriously. In short, he is completely incompetent in the film and kills one, yes, one zombie in the entire film. If he hadn’t been in the movie at all, none of this would have happened. The filmmakers apparently put it there only for the entertainment of the audience, which, unfortunately, caused even more outrage in my country. And I’m not even talking about the Birkin family in the person of his wife Anette and daughter Sherry. None of these characters received a place in the story. Especially for Sherry, this looks especially funny, because in the film you will find several scenes where it seems that she was on the tape by mistake and she should not have been there at all.

Bechko in all directions

But if we talk about something positive, then the first half of the film pleasantly surprised me. When you come to terms with the fact that this is absolute B-flat with very bad effects, you will have a lot of fun. There are some classic clichés and funny moments, but they didn’t bother me that much as a result. Also, there are some great scenes, especially at Spencer’s villa. Pretty much every zombie encounter here is done well, I have to highlight the scene in which Chris fights hard and slowly runs out of ammo. The light on his weapon goes out, which suddenly plunges us into complete darkness, and the only source of light is Chris’ rifle shots. This is a real survival horror movie, and if the whole movie was made in a similar spirit, then the result could be really great. Unfortunately, this has not happened. In most other action scenes, we also see characters teleport, where the camera leaves them in a spectacular moment, and suddenly the hero appears in a completely different place and runs away from the previous fight without a single scratch.

The second half of the film already fails in every way. The story runs from five to nine, and almost nothing makes sense. A solid idea in the form of a “good” Albert Wesker is completely buried in how other characters react to his reincarnation. In fact, most of the dialogue seems very unnatural. And it’s not about the acting, I think they’re really good (especially Donal Logue as Police Chief Irons), but rather the script, which is mostly bad. Even the complete end does not save, which is already one hundred percent redemption of everything possible only for the appearance of other famous characters. At the same time, the director omitted several of them. Whether it’s Rebecca Chambers of Team Bravo, Barry Burton of Team Alpha, or some monster like the Hunters or Mister White. X. Don’t look for any of that here.

And when it comes to monsters, you need to break them down in more detail. Zombies look very different than in the games, and not in a very good way. On the other hand, I was quite pleased with how they handled their behavior. In the film, people change gradually, in the early stages of infection, they can still talk and behave quite aggressively. Then there are the infected dogs, which behave according to their ideas, but look absolutely terrible. Probably the best one is the slime, which, on the contrary, looks just great, but the filmmakers did not use it at all. In general, they didn’t even explain that he reacts to sound and doesn’t see anything at all, which is terribly sorry. There are many more moments in the film when the viewer, who does not know the games, does not understand everything.

Good fanservice, but will it be enough for the fans?

However, what I have to give a lot of praise to is the main locations that seem to have fallen out of the game template. And not to mention, the filmmakers even got the exact plans directly from Capcom. The police station, orphanage, and Spencer’s headquarters all look exactly like they do in the games, which fans of the series will love. The references to the games are just as good, whether it’s various inscriptions, familiar buzzwords (like “Jill Sandwich” or “Itchy, Tasty”) or legendary scenes like the transformation of zombies in the first Resident Evil. In this regard, this is a very solid fan service.

But it’s really just one of the few positives in the whole, very shabby experience. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City fails at just about everything. The film has a bad script, terrible effects, and since it spans the story of two games, it’s also relatively short, which completely kills any opportunity for character development. If you are not a fan of the game series, then definitely do not go to the cinema, it is not worth it. And even if you’re a fan, you’d better think first if it’s worth the money. Aside from the faithful locations, game references, and a few well-filmed scenes, there aren’t many positives here.