Watched the latest Resident Evil movie at cinemas and I went in thinking "it is probably going to suck" because all the reviews I have seen for it online were negative. Was not disappointed. It sucks.
Like the last Matrix movie, it relies too much on fanservice to be a standalone horror movie that can appeal to casual viewers; but it does the fanservice so badly that it does not appeal to fans of the franchise at all. So it will not really appeal to anybody in the end.
As a longtime RE fanboy, I did not like the way the characters were treated, I did not like the way the story tried to shoehorn both RE1 and RE2 storylines into a single 107 minutes worth of screentime and I was not impressed by the performances of the cast.
The Redfield brother and sister duo are the only characters who look anything like their game counterparts. The rest of the characters feel terribly miscast. Being racially recast as Jill Valentine, Hannah John-Kamen really needed to impress to justify herself in the role and I don't really feel she managed that. And when I think about Albert Wesker and Leon Kennedy, I start to get really angry.
I am a huge fan of Leon in the games. While watching this movie, I really wanted to see the character die a horrible death. Twice or more if possible...
So does the movie get anything right? Yeah, the set locations are pretty accurate. Some callbacks to scenes from the new Remake games. A few random easter eggs for die-hard fans of the franchise (ooh, Ashford twins from Code Veronica). There is like 1 Licker, maybe 2 Cerberus (Zombie Dogs) and of course the G-Virus Birkin Monster.
Claire Redfield is the best character in the movie easily. The rest of them are just there to fill up space and move things along. Say what you want about the earlier Paul W.S. Anderson movies but the characters were mostly pretty well cast to pay tribute to the games. I suddenly want to rewatch the older movies for nostalgia points.
Basically all the scenes worth watching in Welcome to Raccoon City are in the trailer above. If you like what you see in the trailer, then maybe you can sit through the whole movie. Otherwise, just do yourself a favor and avoid it. If we all stop paying money to see it, maybe they won't make another one.
I leave you with a final thought shared by fellow Panicker Koe, who left the cinema feeling quite pleased that, "It was a pretty good Silent Hill movie. I felt quite satisfied with it."
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