But Do Any Raccoons Live In This City?

 

I tried to play the original Resident Evil Playstation game once. It did not go well.

The opening? Awesome. A full zombie setup dropped into a spooky gothic mansion? SIGN LATE TEENS ME UP.

There was a small problem: I couldn't get past the very round. 

After a few years away from Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, my video game skills had decayed. Have you SEEN a Playstation control? A plane's cockpit has fewer buttons!

Needless to say, I have next to no experience with the Resident Evil games. I've seen (I think?) all of the live action films up to this one, and generally had a good, occasionally great time, even without any narrative context. To see a new zombie movie in the theaters in 2002 was a shockingly exciting moment in time. It was a subgenre that had, for so long, been restricted to VHS rentals. This was before 28 Days Later made it across the Atlantic Ocean, before The Walking Dead would turn civilians into undead obsessives. 

The world was a different place.

I sound very old.

Quick Plot: Young Claire and Chris Redfield are growing up in the Raccoon City Orphanage with only each other to lean on. When she realizes she's about to become a test subject, Claire runs away, returning some years later via hitchhike in the form of well-dressed and ridiculously well-haired Kaya Scodelario. 

Chris had stayed behind under the care of orphanage president/mad scientist  Dr. Dirkin, played by the always ominously Aryan Neal McDonough. Now a strapping young man, Chris is part of the local special ops force with pals Jill Valentine and Albert Wexler. Also in town is Chief Irons and rookie cop Leon Kennedy.

My understanding, based on how the movie always slows down when a character's name is stated, is that these names are very, very important for those who have played the video games. For Luddites like me, they just sound a little silly.

It doesn't take long for hell to break out in town. Claire has some insider information from online forums that Raccoon City, about to become a ghost town once Umbrella Corporation relocates, has a sordid history of dangerous pollution and illegal medical experimentation. Naturally, she arrives right in time for the town's remaining residents to start turning.

 

Set in 1998, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City admirably commits itself to using CGI technology fitting of its era. Some quick research reveals the film's budget was continuously reduced from conception to filming, apparently forcing the hand of director Johannes Roberts (he of the slightly disappointing 47 Meters Down and surprisingly great The Strangers: Prey At Night) to make constant cuts. That might also explain the dialogue.

No, you don't necessarily need dollars for good writing, but if your movie keeps losing scenes and transitions, then your script simply has to include exposition. Does it have to be handled as clumsily as this movie? Probably not. By the third time a character stops to say, "You might be wondering how I know so much about this," the only way forward is to imagine an onscreen ticker digitally added that reads "JUST KEEP REMINDING YOURSELF: IT'S BASED ON A VIDEO GAME. IT'S BASED ON A VIDEO GAME. IT'S BASED ON A -"

I say this all with a fair amount of affection because you know what? I enjoyed this stupid movie!

Is it at the level of Street Fighter? Nothing is. Is it many sonic booms above Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li? Well yes, but really, what isn't?

This movie does not look very good. Its screenplay went through dozens of rewrites and every frame seems to still show a red pen edit. There is no real world where a dignified person could call Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, a good movie. But much like (most of) the original Paul W. Anderson series, it's fun. As the kids never seem to tire of saying, it understands the assignment, even if its studio could only scrounge up a few broken pencils to complete it. Sure, I was never scared, but I was also never bored. That's something!

High Points

I don't envy any actor trying to balance their performance in a video game genre movie, but for the most part, the cast manages to maintain some form of dignity, occasionally as human beings (Tom Hopper's Wexler), comic relief (the always welcome Donal Logue as Irons), or in the form of the reliable coolness of Kaya Scodelario

 

Low Points

I don't see a reason to harp on the same things any real critic would call out here (the fact that the movie isn't, you know, traditionally very good) so instead, let's point out something that will never not infuriate me: that every character behind the wheel cannot keep their eyes on the road. HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING FROM THE DESCENT?

Lessons Learned

A chat room is a place on the internet where people chat

You never know what you'll find in first class

Nothing feels better than your big brother's football helmet

Rent/Bury/Buy

It's hard to know who will or won't enjoy this iteration of Resident Evil. Fans of the game will likely spot every easter egg faster than Gaston when hungry, but does that mean this is a good adaptation? I have no idea. Is it a good action horror movie? Not really, but it's never dull! For me, this was a satisfying 100 minutes, and I'm disappointed that there won't be a sequel from the same team.