Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City looked to be far a far more faithful adaptation of the survival horror series than what came before. Featuring all the series’ most notable characters, the movie could have finally been the one that fans were waiting for.
Sadly this is not the case and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City misses the mark on many occasions. That’s not to say it’s all bad though as the atmosphere is much closer to that of the games than the previous series of films and some characters are portrayed much more closely to their virtual counterpart.
The story attempts to merge the plots from the first and second games, creating some sort of mish-mash of multiple plot threads which do come together at the end but are missing some key elements, namely the Tyrant and Mr. X, with William Burkin the main antagonist.
It’s understandable that the games can’t be recreated 100% but the tyrant was a big part of the game and instead of one well rounded plot, we get two half plots. We don’t see much of the mansion or the police station and both are such iconic locations that if they are being included, they should be done justice.
The atmosphere is at times great, particularly the opening orphanage scene which is very creepy and follows up with some very intense moments which are sadly few and far between. The tension and heart pounding terror from the games isn’t translated to the big screen aside from the odd moment.
One thing that most fans are going to notice is the inclusion of all the main characters from the mainline series of games and some portrayals are better than others. It doesn’t all come down to looks but the character must have at least some personality traits of the character they are based upon and Leon’s in particular is very far from this. Leon is a rookie cop but he is not an incompetent fool and it’s a shame his thrown in at the deep end story has been replaced with someone who has no clue what they are doing, who managed to be come a cop due to their family ties.
Some other characters also suffer the same fate. In the source material, Wesker is a cool and calculated leader/turncoat to the S.T.A.R.S team and his betrayal has more meaningful intentions than for money and a way out of Raccoon City. Some portrayals are great though and Kaya Scoldelario does a fantastic job as Claire Redfield, as does Robbie Amell as her big brother Chris. A sequel focusing on her character would be a great direction to take the series, especially if Code: Veronica was used as the inspiration. Another direction could have been an adaptation of Nemesis but seeing as though Raccoon City is destroyed by the end and Jill Valentine features all the way throughout the movie, there’s no way this is possible.
Aside from some very ropey looking CGI moments, the effects are surprisingly good, in particular the makeup on the zombies. The many undead are shown in various sates of decay and the practical effects are a definite highlight of the movie, they look really unnerving and genuinely scary, as does one particular orphanage dweller.
As mentioned the CGI is more miss than hit and the one scene of the licker looks very out of place and more line with an animated feature like Infinite Darkness, and the less said about the mutated William Birkin, the better.
I’m very conflicted about this movie because I’m a massive fan of the series as a whole, including the previous series of movies but it just falls too short. If the story was more focused and concentrated instead of two side by side narratives it would’ve worked a lot better. The movie should have just focused on the mansion incident and then followed up with a sequel.
The fantastic set design, occasional creepy atmosphere mirrors that of the excellent game series, but odd character and story choices hampered it’s chances of being great. I wouldn’t call it an absolutely terrible movie and it does try to be as faithful as possible, even with it’s relatively short run time but it’s by no means a great one.
Better than:
Resident Evil (2002): No
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016): Yes
Final Score: A flesh rotting, brain hungry 5/10
By Dan Potts
Everyday of the Geek 