Recenze filmu Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

Resident Evil is without a doubt one of the most popular horror series in the field of video games. The brand, which has been with us for 25 years, has tried it many times on the movie screen, where it has never achieved such success. Director Paul WS Anderson made a total of six films, but none were well received by fans. This is mainly due to the fact that the filmmakers deviated from the characters from the games and switched the central role to Alice, played by Milla Jovovich.

However, four years after the release of the last film, another film goes to the cinemas, subtitled Welcome to Raccoon City. This time it’s a reboot run by director Johannes Roberts. He had a clear goal in his making: to create a film that would stick more to the game templates, and thus be grateful to the fans. Unfortunately, neither went so well.

• Premiere date: 2. 12. 2021 (v USA 24. 11. 2021)
• Genre: Action, horror
• Director and screenplay: Johannes Roberts

The very changes in the story

If you are a fan of the series, the very premise of the film will probably stop you. It deals with the story of the first two games, although they are not very close to the plot. RE1 takes place in July 1998, while RE2 until the end of September. The connection of RE0 and RE1, which are closely related, would be much more offered. Even better could be the connection between RE2 and RE3, whose stories even overlap, and this concept would make perfect sense. But Roberts has decided otherwise, and we have no choice but to shake our heads. By combining events RE1 and RE2 in one day, he just got into trouble.

This is far from the only change you will find in the film. The biggest ones concern the characters themselves, especially Claire Redfield. In the film, she grew up in a Raccoon orphanage, under the direction of Dr. Birkin, from whom she subsequently escaped. Claire is the one who plays the central role in the film, which is a bit of a paradox, considering that she got into the whole incident by chance in the games. But I wouldn’t have such a problem with this change if it didn’t affect the other characters.

Another problem is the fact that at the expense of Claire, some characters were behind. This is especially Leon, who is one of the biggest fans’ favorites. But in the film, they only made him a clown. Yes, he is a newcomer to the police in Resident Evil 2, but he takes his profession very seriously. In short, he is absolutely incompetent in the film and kills one, yes, one zombie for the whole film. If he wasn’t in the movie at all, nothing would happen. The filmmakers apparently put him there only to entertain the audience, which unfortunately led to even greater indignation in my country. And I’m not even talking about the Birkin family, in the form of his wife Anette and daughter Sherry. None of these characters got any space in the story. Especially for Sherry, it looks especially funny, because in the film you will find several scenes where it seems as if she got on the film by mistake and she shouldn’t be there at all.

Béčko in all directions

But to talk about something positive, the first half of the film surprised me quite nicely. When you come to terms with the fact that this is an absolute B-flat that has very bad effects, you will have a lot of fun. There are several classic clichés and wannabe funny moments, but they didn’t bother me as much as a result. In addition, there are some great scenes, especially those in Spencer’s villa. Virtually every encounter with zombies is well done here, I have to highlight the scene in which Chris fights with all his might and slowly runs out of ammunition. The light on his weapon goes out, which suddenly puts us in complete darkness, and the only source of light is shots from Chris’s rifle. This is the real survival horror, and if the whole film had been made in a similar spirit, the result could have been really great. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. In most other action scenes, we also witness teleporting characters, where the camera leaves them in a thrilling moment and suddenly the hero appears in a completely different place and escapes from the previous fight without scratches.

The second half of the film is already failing in everything. The story runs from fifth to ninth and practically nothing makes sense. A solid idea in the form of the “good” Albert Wesker is completely submerged by how other characters react to his transformation. In fact, most dialogues seem very unnatural. And it’s not about acting, I think they’re really good (especially Donal Logue as the Irons police chief), but more like a script that’s just basically bad. It doesn’t even save the complete end, which is already an absolute repayment of everything possible just for the appearance of other famous characters. At the same time, the director omitted several of them. Whether it’s Rebecca Chambers from the Bravo team, Barry Burton from the Alpha team or some monsters like the Hunters or Mr. X. Don’t look for any of this here.

And when it comes to monsters, you need to break them down in more detail. Zombies look quite different from games and not exactly in a good way. On the other hand, I was quite pleased with how they dealt with their behavior. In the film, people change gradually, in the early stages of the infection they can still talk and rather behave very aggressively. Then there are the infected dogs, who behave according to their ideas, but look absolutely horrible. Probably the best is the licker, which on the contrary looks absolutely great, but the filmmakers didn’t use it at all. Basically, they didn’t even explain that he responded to sound and couldn’t see at all, which is a terrible pity. There are many more moments in the film when a viewer who does not know the games does not understand everything.

Good fan service, but will it be enough for the fans?

However, what I have to praise very much are the main locations that seem to have fallen out of sight of the game template. And not to mention, the filmmakers even got precise plans for it directly from Capcom. The police station, the orphanage and Spencer’s headquarters, everything looks exactly like in the games, which will definitely please fans of the series. The references to the games are just as great, whether it’s various inscriptions, familiar buzzwords (like “Jill Sandwich” or “Itchy, Tasty”) or legendary scenes, such as turning zombies in the first Resident Evil. In this regard, it is a very solid fan service.

But it’s really just one of the few positives in the whole, very battered experience. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City fails in almost everything you can fail. The film has a bad script, appalling effects, and since it covers the story of two games, it’s also relatively short, which completely kills any possibility of character development. If you are not a fan of the game series, be sure not to go to the cinema, it is not worth it. And even if you’re a fan, you better think carefully about whether it’s worth the money. Apart from faithful locations, game references and a few well-filmed scenes, there are not many positives here.