RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY (2021)

RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY (2021)

Tagline: Witness the Beginning of Evil.

(Action, Sci-Fi, Claire Is Not Crazy) [R]

Note: This movie is not tied to the superior Paul W.S. Anderson-directed series. Having said that Paul W.S. Anderson was one of the Executive Producers. 

Hey. Pay us no mind, we're nice people once you get to know us. I'm Jill Valentine.

In this one, the Umbrella Corporation is a big enough employer to warrant having an entire town built around it. Now the evil pharmaceutical titan is moving to new facilities. Raccoon City is losing its population leaving a handful of Umbrella employees and some poor citizens behind. Below the surface of the city, a terrible experiment has gone awry and now a small band of survivors must find a way out of the city. 

Okay, first off, I should make it clear that I never played the video games for more than a few minutes. I may say this in every RESIDENT EVIL movie review I do. So for me, none of the RESIDENT EVIL movies by Paul W.S. Anderson ruined anything. If anything the biggest issue in the original series was continuity regarding the cast, but that’s a different set of reviews. What this film does, is take a shot at rebooting the series to more closely follow the first two video games. 

Some of the effects are pretty shaky in this, but overall the design work is pretty nuts. I don’t know if there was anything that shocked or surprised the video game's fans, but a lot of this was just rehashing some of the ideas from the original movie in a less interesting way. The backstory for what William Birkin was even trying to accomplish is presented in a pretty vague way. Even the hints we do get don’t really offer a motive. The action sequences are pretty bland. We have many sequences when Chris Redfield (played by Robbie Amell (THE DUFF)) looked like he was going to be toast and somehow finds a way out of it. This is not to say that we didn’t get ridiculous moments in the original series, but the tone of this one is less “super-powered” if that makes any sense. 

Acting wise I do like Tom Hopper in the TV series “Umbrella Academy” but in almost everything else I have seen him in (including this) he just seems out of place as Albert Wesker. I would go as far as to say that if we are comparing head to head the two Jill Valentine's, the two Albert Wesker's, and the two Claire Redfield’s from the other movies and this one, every cast member is a downgrade. That isn’t mean to be a jerk, these are all great actors and actresses that I like… it just is what it is. Speaking of liking the cast, Kaya Scodelario (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES) actually does a decent job as Claire, but the explanations for all of her “skills” are pretty suspect and it’s hard to improve on Ali Larter from the original. Hannah John-Kamen (READY PLAYER ONE) is also a solid actress and again is decent, but she isn’t the character I picture when I think of Jill Valentine. Avan Jogia (SHAFT) is good as Leon and does provide some of the few humorous lines we get in the movie. Donal Logue (BLADE) also gets a few funny lines as Chief Irons and also does a decent job. 

The bottom line is this cast as good as it is, just doesn’t fix the bland storytelling and clunky execution this flick has to offer. I did like that the movie had a soundtrack that added a little life to the overall tone. At the box office, this movie wasn’t able to double its production budget. A follow-up unrelated live-action streaming TV series failed, so I guess the future of the franchise is still in the air when it comes to the films. By way of comparison, as much hate as the original film series got, every movie in that series made nearly 3 times its production cost with the last installment making 7 times what it cost to make. Needless to say, Milla Jovovich and the stylized over-the-top action sequences were a huge draw. This thing wasn’t. 

This one gets a 4 out of 7 for the cast and a few decent lines, but it lacked the iconic feel of every other film in the series and it failed to get me interested in seeing a sequel if they make one. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF CONSTANTIN FILM AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.