Resident Evil has had it’s share of big screen outings. From 2002 to 2017 we got loosely based on the game series movies. The movies were decent action flicks and had a successful run in the theaters grossing over $1.2 billion over the course of it’s 6 movie run. Just because it’s called Resident Evil and they threw an occasional easter egg in there. As any true fan will tell you. It is not “Resident Evil”.
The 2021 Reboot Resident Evil : Welcome to Raccoon City aims to fix these issues. And promised to be more faithful to the game series. This got us fans extremely excited. Check out my Trailer dissection video here.
The movie draws inspiration from the first 2 games in the series. Some freedoms were take to the characters back stories. For example Chris and Clair Redfield were now orphans in Racoon City. Most of these rewrites in the story aren’t important though. The true stars are the Zombies, Bio Weapons, and classic locales.
Like the iconic Spencer mansion 
and RPD police department 
.
The Cast
The film opens with Chris and Clair in the Racoon city orphanage. It’s being helmed by a recognizable character Dr. William Birkin (Resident Evil 2). Where Claire meets Lisa Trevor a terribly disfigured girl. From there the movie jumps to Clair hitching a ride with a truck driver. After a run in with a woman on the road she makes it to Racoon city. Eventually making it Racoon city police department one of the 2 major locales for the movie. Meanwhile Chris is sent to the Spencer mansion, the second of the 2 major locales. Up to this point the movie does a very good job setting up the events to come.
The Good
The movie tries very hard to take us through these locales and does a pretty good job at putting our heroes in them. I have to admit I was geeking out when I saw the zombie introduction scene. It was so close to the original and the sense of dread was felt . Likewise the introduction to the licker was great. It starts with the ceiling lights slowly moving one after the other. Then you realize “That’s a licker!” (CORRELE!) It’s these iconic scenes that Resident Evil fans yearned to see in realized. And in that the movie delivered.
The Bad
Everything in between these iconic scenes is where the movie felt weak. For starters it felt extremely rushed. When all hell starts breaking loose is when the movie begins to falter. We get too many zombies in your face scares. It started to feel repetitive. It jumps from scenery to scenery like it was trying to get me out of theater in a rush. Maybe it needs a Snyder Cut treatment to flesh out these scenes. The acting wasn’t necessarily bad , though I guess that means it wasn’t good either. The characters felt bland . The plot is mostly forgettable.
I guess that’s what happens when you try condensing 2 games in to less a less than 2 hours movie. You end up leaving a lot of the plot out. I get the sense that the movie will only really resonate with fans of the games, casual viewers will be too lost in the plot to care.
I really wanted to like this movie. However the short comings eclipsed the enthusiasm I felt viewing the live-action adaptation of these iconic Resident Evil games. Thanks for joining again , and as always. Stay retro…
