For almost 20 years, Sony has tried to make a decent Resident Evil movie based on the videogames, and year after year, these films seem to get worse in quality.
Despite finally moving past the Milla Jovovich/Paul W.S. Anderson era of bad movies that don’t follow any of the film’s storylines, we still aren’t any closer to that goal of a decent movie, and “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City” does not help matters.
There is only one word to describe this movie…baffling. It’s like someone high up at Sony said “Let’s do a reboot of Resident Evil and cast a bunch of actors who are completely miscast in the roles they are playing in”.
How can you be asked to buy into a film that looks like a CW-level cast and production?
Now perhaps if this was not a Resident Evil film, it would be a decent movie, but it is a Resident Evil film.
Welcome To Raccoon City is an insult to the series, yes, even more than the Milla Jovovich films. At no point in watching this film do you believe anyone is the character that they are playing on screen. You have Hannah John-Kamen cast as Jill Valentine which is downright laughable. Tom Hopper cast Albert Wesker who gives you no on-screen presence that will make you believe that he will be the next uber-villain of the series. As well as Lily Gao playing Ada Wong without any nuance to her character.
The two biggest insults in the film are arguably the two most popular characters of the series. Robbie Amell plays Chris Redfield who is the only person who actually looks like the character in his younger days but the movie forces him to be second fiddle to Kaya Scodelario’s portrayal of Claire Redfield. Claire in the movie is the strong female lead who is there to be the savior of the movie while never needing to be saved herself because of gender stereotypes.
Sure, Clarie is a key character in the series but the film speed runs through the storyline of two different games robbing audiences of the character progression that made her an important character all for the sake of having a feminist idol to please progressive audiences.
The biggest disgrace of the film is Avan Jogia who is not only unbelievable as Leon S. Kennedy, but the film pulls a Venom and relegates his character to be the comic relief. Leon is portrayed as a complete buffoon in the film to the point there is no possible way anyone will believe he could be a leading protagonist in any future film. Sony makes it clear with this film they are putting all of their eggs in the Claire Redfield basket and that gamble is going to bankrupt Sony before it ever gets off the ground.
There is a small shred of irony that the world’s biggest pharmaceutical company, the evil Umbrella Corporation, is making a comeback during an era where we are sending people to COVID camps for refusing vaccines but even then there is no saving grace for this film.
People have been sick and tired of resident evil movies for the last 15 years, you had ONE chance to win them back and you blew. “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City” sucks and there is no professional way of spinning this reality, the movie simply blows.
1/5
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You’d think Sony would have learned its lesson from the failures of Ghostbusters 2016 and Charlie’s Angels 2019. Nobody wants to see woke feminist reboots, get it through your thick corporate heads already.