“I plan on dying peacefully, in bed, snuggled in Wesker’s big burly arms.”
Justin’s rating: Two out of four S.T.A.R.S.!
Justin’s review: I’m still absolutely flummoxed to recently discover that Resident Evil: The Final Chapter pulled in nearly a third of a billion dollars worldwide. For the six movie of a zombie action series, that’s unheard of.* And so it takes very little imagination to figure out that Hollywood wasn’t going to let this franchise decay** even if the director and main star were done with it.
That’s right, it’s reboot time! The franchise tried for a fresh start in 2021 with Welcome to Raccoon City, which did not do so hot, and it’s about to try again in 2026. Alice got out at just the right time, I’m guessing.
It’s not as though the Resident Evil video games were ever known for being narrative powerhouses. The original PlayStation trilogy that I played was mostly about slow tank controls, saving your game on typewriters, zombie dogs, and some ridiculous bad guys including a dude who wore sunglasses all the time. It wasn’t Lord of the Rings world building; it was merely goofy horror mixed in with improbably dressed police officers and a corporation that invested in a lot of mansions. You get that tone, you understand why the fandom has a soft spot for this franchise.
Welcome to Raccoon City follows Claire Redfield (Kaya Scodelario, Crawl) as she returns to the titular metropolis that’s owned and operated by the surely-not-evil Umbrella Corporation. She ends up trying to escape town with a hapless rookie cop named Leon while her SWAT, er, STARS brother Chris (Robbie Amell) and his special unit investigate Umbrella’s mysterious Spencer Mansion on the eve of a huge zombie breakout.
Lots of weird stuff’s been happening in this mostly deserted town — it gets a plenty more deserted when the sirens go off and the town starts to evacuate from some unknown disaster — and everyone doesn’t have much time to figure it out before things go from bad to worse over the course of one night. So we’ve got the two groups representing Game 1 and Game 2 navigating a landscape filled with bad chemicals, zombies, and a prerequisite creepy horror girl.
Instead of being a nonstop gonzo action fest the way that Paul WS Anderson’s series went, this movie tries — tries — for more of a slow-burning Silent Hill horror tone along with as many nods to the video games as possible because it’s the 2020s and we need a steady diet of fan service or else we’ll starve.
The problem is that this copious fan service draws too much attention to the iconic connections while also highlighting how different they all were from the games. Almost every major character is questionably rewritten to be quite different than their game counterparts, and that tends to alienate fans.
My general stance is that I’m lenient on adaptations as long as they get the spirit of the source material and create a great story from it. I mean, Resident Evil from 1996 isn’t my personal Bible, so I’m not going to have a hissy fit that the Leon or Wesker here aren’t 1:1 counterparts. But I do care that this is just randomly slamming parts of the first couple games together without much of a story to back it up.
There are some fantastic visuals here that are reminiscent of the eerie scenes from the games that stick out in my memory after all these years, and I could see the attempt to make this an actual horror movie more than Anderson’s series and a more faithful adaptation of the games. But “attempt” isn’t the same as “successful execution.”
I was also slightly amused by the 1999 setting of the film, which was mostly — as far as I can tell — an excuse to show Nokia cell phones and Palm Pilots and play a lot of late ’90s alt rock on the soundtrack. I’m not complaining about that.
I will complain that, like so many adaptations, Welcome to Raccoon City fails to live up to its potential. It’s often too dark to watch, filled with characters who don’t seem to understand their own backstories, and more concerned with firing gore and fan service in our face than a satisfying tale. It’s OK, but OK isn’t enough when there are seven other movies in this franchise (plus the animated movies, plus the games) from which to pick.
*Yes, I ended on a preposition. That’s how flummoxed I was.
**A little rigor mortis humor for you.
Intermission!
- Maybe don’t make friends with a manacled girl who lives “BELOW”
- That may be the only zombie who just wanders off instead of attacking people
- People bleeding from the eyes, zombie birds, people with hair falling out, and creepy voices singing on the soundtrack are all signs that everything is hunky-dory.
- “I see you wax your chest now.”
- She looks cute in a football helmet. She should keep it on.
- Chris doesn’t know what a chat room is? And he’s really, really upset that Claire knows how to pick a lock?
- ITCHY TASTY
- This police chief is unhinged
- Leon doesn’t notice a giant tanker exploding or a flaming zombie walking into the lobby? He’s the worst.
- Who lights all the candles in this mansion? Is there a zombie candle lighter? I want that movie.
- About time we got some zombie dogs, they’re like this series’ mascots
- Haha the pilot is playing Snake on his Nokia
- Piano tunes open up secret passages
- “Who doesn’t cough up a little blood when they’re feeling sick?”
- Yes, let’s detour to the freaky haunted orphanage while trying to escape the town
- Oh hai, Licker!
- “You’ve got some weird friends.”
- If you’re being dissected, all you can say is a quiet “ow ow”
- I am happy we got the underground train, though, even if that didn’t make any sense in the game, nevermind the movie
