Bullet Points: Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is now available to own on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
- Memory Lane: I recently revisited the original Resident Evil movie. It left me somewhat cold. It did not age well, and I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to revisit the other films. I figured they would be more of the same shit… I didn’t play the video games a lot back in the day. I played other games, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t know about Chris, Claire, Jill and Leon. This is what raised my hopes for Raccoon City. A movie that promised to be more true to its original source: The Video Games. A good comparison would be the new Reacher series on Prime. Reacher is so much more true to the books than the Tom Cruise films… Now, Raccoon City does not cast everyone the same as their character. Claire is much older. Jill has some different personality traits in the film. Leon does not look like Leon. But damn, Robbie Amell looks just like Video Game Chris’ doppelgänger… What Raccoon City does best is to capture the atmosphere of the games. The locations, the monsters, and the rain all feel like the video games spit them out. I believe Resident Evil 1 had Chris and Jill as playable characters, while Resident Evil 2 featured Claire and Leon as playable characters as they searched for Chris. In Raccoon City, all the characters are together, but we do see Claire and Leon trying to find Chris. The plots of the games are combined for the film . The other part of Raccoon City is the movie is more Claire focused than Chris. My personal favorite character in the film is Leon. That fella is a trip.
- Action Report: Raccoon City was marketed as non-stop action. That is not 100% accurate. It takes at least 40 minutes or so to get the action going. The beginning focuses more on character and plot development. What it is lacking in action in the beginning is made up for with the use of horror elements. Raccoon City is a horror movie disguised as an action flick. There’s some creepy ass scenes throughout the movie. You keep your sense of uneasiness until the final credits roll. I must give credit to Neal McDonough. Talk about a professional creep as Dr. William Birkin. That character will give you nightmares.
- Special Features: After watching a special feature on the Blu-ray, I learned from the director, Johannes Roberts that half the effects are practical and half are CGI. Some of the monsters looked cheap to me. While the exploding helicopter looked pretty damn cool. To sum it up: The special effects are inconsistent. Some scenes look great, some look not-so-great. There is this one badass action sequence with Chris in the dark fighting all these monsters with all types of weapons. It is excellent stunt work.
- Final Thoughts: I am glad I watched Raccoon City. I didn’t love it, but I definitely didn’t hate it. I believe I would much rather revisit Raccoon City, than watch the previous films. I hope to see a sequel with the same cast in the future. There is still a lot of story left to be told.
- Grade: B
