Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon city — Review

Been waiting for this one to reach a streaming site and it’s only a dollar to rent on amazon right now. Check it out via my affiliate link here. Helps out my page and it’s only a Dollar to rent.

So short review it’s a fun movie. It’s not ground breaking nor anything to write home about but if you want a casual movie night this one is for you. Any away Spoilers ahead.

Alright for everyone else who watched the movie here is the long version.

If I could sum up the movie in one meme it’s this one:

There is a ton of look do the thing in this movie if you have played the original or remakes of the games: specifically RE1 and RE2.

It’s also a mix of those games into one story. Which is fine but it does kind of take away the main focus and condenses two movies into one. It loosely follows the events of RE1 with characters in RE2 added in.

Also they kind of did Leon dirty here. I didn’t mind the casting but it they really changed his backstory and character in this version. He literally only did one thing and it didn’t really feel like he deserved it. Him killing the final boss felt cheap and was only played for fan service.

This movie was mainly Claire and Wesker.

Tom Hopper did a great job but it felt like he was acting like Chris Redfield. Wesker is cold and a lone wolf in the games and ultimately the main villain. In this movie Tom’s Wesker felt like he was Chris.

While we are on the subject of Chris. Robbie felt like a different character here. The movie did give him some good scenes but it was over shadowed by Claire.

I think the biggest problem is the script. A ton of plot threads seem to go nowhere. This felt like if you didn’t play any of the games you would have felt like you were missing a part 2 to explain the rest.

I feel like this movie is kind of an addition content for the games backstory. You see how the zombies take over the town and see how some of the pieces got to where they are.

But there are some plot holes which kind of need addressing. How were our main cast immune to the virus? Claire briefly mentions the Stars team getting a shot or something. But that doesn’t explain how she and Leon who just got into town didn’t show any signs of the virus.

Why lock up Claire’s contact in the jail in Raccoon city? I guess to silence him when they blow up the town, but why not just take him out when they got to him? Why bring him all the way to jail? I assume he was somewhere close by but you risk him escaping or someone looking into it.

I think a lot of theses questions could have been fleshed out in a part 2 or even part 3. I think cramming two games worth of story into a single movie did a disservice to Resident Evil. But maybe they weren’t sure they would get funding for a sequel and had to put everything into this first one. Anyway while flawed it did entertain and worth streaming or a cheap rental. But I don’t think anyone would have been satisfied if they saw it for full price when it came out in theaters.