Released: November 2021
Director: Johannes Roberts
Rated R
Run Time: 107 Minutes
Distributor: Sony/Screen Gems
Genre: Horror
Cast:
Kaya Scodelario: Claire Redfield
Robbie Amell: Chris Redfield
Hannah John-Kamen: Jill Valentine
Tom Hopper: Albert Wesker
Avan Jogia: Leon S. Kennedy
Donal Logue: Chief Irons
Neal McDonough: William Birkin
For the longest time, most people thought that video games were for kids. For a while, they kind of were. But over the last 25 years, we’ve seen video games become another legitimate medium for story-telling. Even more impressive is that a lot of games these days have become more cinematic in their approach to telling stories. Uncharted, for example, is a very cinematic experience that happens to be a great video game, especially Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. So, with video games becoming more movie-like in their presentation, it’s bizarre to see them continue to try to bring these interactive experiences to the big screen. The problem? Most gamers prefer the interactive experience as opposed to the passive experience of a movie. They have more control over what a character does, whereas a movie, you just sit back and watch it. Another issue is that movie producers and directors fail to understand that idea and try to market these movies towards an audience that is obviously going to be extremely skeptical, and rightfully so. Most movies based on video games suck. There’s not a critic out there that’ll deny that. There’s a few here and there that manage to be somewhat decent: Mortal Kombat(1995), Tomb Raider(2017), Sonic The Hedgehog, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. In 2002, there was another movie that almost broke the curse of the video game film: Resident Evil. 20 years and 5 sequels later, we have a new entry: A reboot called Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City. It’s a ridiculously long-winded name, so I’ll just refer to it as RE: 2021.
In the long-forgotten year of 1998, a ruthless organization known as the Umbrella Corporation has been conducting illegal bio-weapon experiments in the suburbs of Raccoon City. Claire Redfield, a former resident of the city returns to inform her brother, Chris that Umbrella isn’t the benevolent business that he thought they were and that there’s something seriously wrong with the city. At the same time, a group of elite police officers disappeared will investigating a dead body at a nearby mansion. The Resident Evil video games owe their existence to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. Those are are two of the most iconic zombie movies ever made. As a casual fan of the games, I could see the influence that Romero had on the original 3 games. These games wear their influence on their sleeves and rightfully so, because the stories in these games are very b-level horror movie kind of stories, and they work in the confines of a video game. The original movie that was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and starred Milla Jovovich, took a lot of elements from the original game, but it managed to do things in a very different way that worked for movies. Say what you will about the sequels, they still managed to feel like Resident Evil without actually referencing the games, outside of the zombies and characters. The movies went their own way. This new Resident Evil takes the first two games and mashes them together into an incoherent mess, when they really didn’t need to. All they had to do was focus on one game or the other. Splicing the two together created a whole lot of narrative problems. There’s way too much going on, and as a result, it takes a while for the film to really get going, but by the time it does, it’s almost over. It’s really bad writing.
In all fairness, it’s really obvious that the film-makers have a great deal of love for the source material. That much is clear, and you can definitely see it in the details. From a visual standpoint, RE:2021 LOOKS like a Resident Evil movie. The locations, the sets, and the costumes are all ripped from the game. They also look really, really good. Some of the creature designs for the Licker and Birkin are all really good. Kaya Scodelario LOOKS like Claire Redfield and Robbie Amell LOOKS like Chris Redfield. I can’t emphasize it enough: The movie LOOKS like Resident Evil. The problem is that it doesn’t FEEL like Resident Evil. There’s a lot of reasons for that. First of all, the writing is awful. There’s not a character in the film that the audience could identify with. They’re all incredibly unlikable and one-note. The worst offense here is what they did to Leon Kennedy, one of the protagonists from the second game. In the game, Kennedy was a rookie, yes, but he was not stupid. The Leon Kennedy in this movie is a complete and utter MORON. He can’t seem to do anything without approval from the chief, who doesn’t like him at all, and he ends up losing his gun to a non-violent conspiracy theorist locked in a cell. This is the kind of idiot that you would stab in the leg and leave him for the zombies so your group can get away. He’s supposed to be a competent police officer, but Kennedy’s like the low-rent version of a Keystone Cop. Claire is really the only competent character in the movie. She knows how to pick locks, handle guns, and takes charge. Albert Wesker, who would eventually become the franchise’s main and iconic villain, is also the only one that seems to feel like a human being…at times.
About a week ago, I did a post on The Best and Worst Casting in movies. There’s something to be said for a strong casting that can elevate even a bad movie. But when you get every aspect of a casting wrong, it boggles the mind. There’s not a single actor in this movie that has been properly cast. Now, I want to say that I don’t blame the actors for how their characters turned. It’s not entirely their fault. But somebody was drinking on the day that these folks were cast as who they were supposed to be. Robbie Amell actually looks like his video-game counterpart and he does fairly well and Kaya Scodelario is passable as Claire, but everybody feels out of place. Avan Jogia is the most out of place as Leon Kennedy. He doesn’t even LOOK like the character. I’m not going to say that actors have to look exactly like their video game counterparts, but an effort needs to be made to make sure that there are similarities and some sort of resemblance and there wasn’t.
Is there anything that I actually LIKED about this movie? Sure. As I mentioned, the attention to detail is spot-on at times. The locations are identical to the video game counterparts, especially Raccoon City’s Police Department interior. Some of the events are lifted right out of the games as well. There is clearly an attempt at adapting the games into a live-action medium, and I’ll be honest: I kind of enjoyed it. It has a very 90s, b-movie feel to it, which is appropriate because the movie takes place in 1998. Also, I like the fact that I can see what’s going on. The last of the Paul W.S. Anderson movies was a shaky-cam mess. There’s very little of that here. So, the cinematography is pretty good. Sound design is also pretty decent. Some of the CGI creatures are not half-bad. The Licker and the Birkin monster are actually impressive, even if they kind of look like they were ripped from one of the animated Resident Evil movies. The CGI dog, though, was awful. Zombie dogs are fairly integral to the original series of games, but this one was ghastly, in all the wrong ways. Also, the helicopter crash at the mansion was hilariously bad.
Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City was a movie clearly made for the fans, at least that’s what the film-makers hoped. Unfortunately, the die-hard fans of the original games are going to hate this movie. Yeah, the got aspects about it right, but there’s no real tension and no real stakes. You have a problem when the movie you make is centered around fan-service. Fan-service can be a good thing, as it was in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, but it wasn’t in your face like this movie. It’s the same kind of problem that plagues EVERY movie that’s all about fan-service. Do I hate this movie? Honestly, no. Disappointed, yeah. But the truth is, is that I enjoyed this movie more often than I didn’t. The problems that this movie has can be laid at the feet of Johannes Roberts, the director and screen-writer. He obviously has passion for the source material, as did everyone that worked on it, but Roberts’ ability to write a coherent script is painfully lacking. Characters are either not interesting enough or they are completely unlikable. The gore is pretty good and some of the creature and zombie designs are pretty decent, but the movie doesn’t get to actually being a Resident Evil movie until the third act, which is completely rushed. Yeah, it’s not a good movie. It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but it feels like it should’ve gone direct-to-video. The fact that it managed a wide theatrical release is beyond me.
I say this as a casual fan of Resident Evil: If you’re a huge fan of the games, stick with those or go back to the original movie. For casual fans like me: Set your expectations low. Real low. You might find yourself entertained a little bit. For the rest of the movie-going audience: Don’t bother. I will say that I would rather watch this than Moonfall again, so there is that.