{"id":39426,"date":"2023-10-20T00:01:58","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T04:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=39426"},"modified":"2023-10-19T23:31:05","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T03:31:05","slug":"resident-evil-welcome-to-raccoon-city-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/20\/resident-evil-welcome-to-raccoon-city-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s surprising that \u201cWelcome to Raccoon City\u201d wasn\u2019t very well received in 2021, as I think it\u2019s about as good a movie as I\u2019d have expected for a \u201cResident Evil\u201d feature film. Surely, it\u2019s by no means a perfect adaptation but I had a great time with it, and enjoyed it so much more than what Paul WS Anderson served up in the aughts. Johannes Roberts injects a lot of life in to this feature film visit to Raccoon City, and his reboot is filled with some great scares, genuinely good zombie carnage, and classic mystery on par with the video games.<\/p>\n

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Raccoon City was the once the booming home of pharmaceutical giant Umbrella Corp. The company’s exodus left the city a wasteland, a dying town with great evil brewing below the surface. When that evil is unleashed, a group of survivors must work together to uncover the truth behind Umbrella and make it through the night as they\u2019re attacked by flesh eating zombies, rotting dogs, and assorted creatures lurking in the dark.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned Johannes Robert doesn\u2019t deliver a genuine masterpiece, but \u201cWelcome to Raccoon City\u201d is a fun experience. The cast is especially good in their respective roles including Kaya Scodelario as Claire, and Avan Jogia as Leon Kennedy. If anything its drawback is that it tries to squeeze in two massive stories in to one film. The movie is a hybrid of parts one and two from the original video games, and the pairing of the narratives works sometimes and hinders the film\u2019s pacing other time.<\/p>\n

One moment we\u2019re watching Claire Redfield fend off zombies in a parking lot, and the next Chris Redfield is lurking around a massive mansion. For the most part, though, I appreciated the film\u2019s unabashed love for the source material, and how it stuck to the video games\u2019 atmosphere. The movie is horror first and foremost and among the setting of the zombie apocalypse, there\u2019s a fascinating mystery involving the Umbrella corporation. I can\u2019t say I was very<\/strong> <\/em>invested in the mystery involving Claire and her brother Chris, as I was never clear on where that was going.<\/p>\n

But the film compensates with some great, tense moments of sheer chaos and action. One great scene involves a zombie consumed by flames walking through the police station, and another moment where Chris is stuck in a dark room and fends off approaching zombies with his gun and the bright lights of the shots. I especially enjoyed the sense of urgency as the clear motivation to get out of the city is set from the first act, and it allows for great tension. \u201cWelcome to Raccoon City\u201d is a bang up reboot, one that revels in the inherent terror of the games, in spite of its flaws.<\/p>\n

I fully intend to re-visit it soon.<\/p>\n