Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)

 

3/10

Starring

Kaya Scodelario

Hannah John-Kamen

Robbie Amell

Tom Hopper

 

Directed by Johannes Roberts

 

The movie has the feel of a low-budget horror flick, which I don’t think it was meant to be. This reboot of the Resident Evil franchise spends over thirty minutes on characters talking and meandering, leaving you waiting for something significant to happen.

I remember the first Resident Evil video game, where you could choose to play as either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, with each character having unique strengths. This movie tries to capture the essence of the first game, as it’s an adaptation of the first two Resident Evil games.

In the movie, Chris and Jill are partners, just like in the game, but their story is lazily tied to the larger Umbrella Corporation saga. Jill’s role is underwhelming, with minimal impact on the plot and far less screen time than the main characters.

The biggest letdown of this movie is the underdeveloped characters. Chris and Claire’s orphanage background is briefly touched on, but it feels like a missed opportunity. We see Claire hitch-hiking back to the town she left and breaking into her brother Chris’s house to show him a video from a friend asking for help. Claire is portrayed as a sort of investigative journalist, but this aspect of her character isn’t explored much.

As the story progresses, we learn that Umbrella, through one of its agents in the city, plans to destroy Raccoon City to contain the virus. Chris and Claire’s past, which is hinted at throughout, never gets fully fleshed out. All we learn is that the orphanage was essentially a testing ground for Umbrella, where children were used as test subjects for their experiments.

The plot fails to even meet the low bar set by the previous films starring Milla Jovovich. With all the tools at its disposal, it’s baffling how this movie managed to fail so spectacularly. The film attempts to offer a fresh perspective by giving Claire—introduced in the game series with Resident Evil 2—a lead role, as she’s the one piecing everything together and trying to involve her brother.

The movie’s B-movie vibe starts with Claire arriving in Raccoon City and surviving several near-death experiences before her brother and the other officers are called in to investigate.

What I appreciated about the first six Resident Evil movies was the introduction of a new character, Alice (played by Milla Jovovich), whose storyline ran parallel to the main game characters. This allowed for fresh stories that occasionally intersected with the game’s narrative.

After watching this reboot, I can only wish I hadn’t bothered.