Resident Evil: Bienvenue à Raccoon City

Like many long time fans of the games, I was certainly not impressed by the trailer for this film. While I was pleased to see plenty of faithful references to the games (Itchy, Tasty, Lisa Trevor) I immediately got the impression that this would be a loosely based take on the first two Resident Evil games.

I can't say I hated this movie, necessarily. There seemed to be some effort at capturing the spirit of the games, and unlike the usual Resident Evil movies, this one seemed like it was trying to be scary. Atmosphere and tone were relatively good. Director Johannes Roberts said he wanted Raccoon City to feel bleak and deserted, and he definitely succeeded, for the most part. Some of the sets felt genuine and right out of the games. Then other moments just suffered. The famous foyer of the mansion and the lobby of the police department looked like poorly rendered cgi images! Plus there were a few moments where it felt like it was trying to tell you it was a "video game movie," which sadly came across as silly. At some points this film felt like a tribute to movies like The Shining. At other points it felt like an Uwe Boll flick.

All of the monster action is fun enough. This movie offers a different take on the spread of the virus, opting for a slow spread of the zombie infection (Hey, there's something up with your eye!) as opposed to arriving and finding the city overrun with zombies. I thought that was interesting enough.

Unfortunately, the movie suffers from pacing and writing issues. The more you think about it after seeing it, the less it will make sense. Some things are over explained, or not explained enough. Plus there are many deviations from the story of the video games. Normally this should be expected, but I suspect that many fans will find some of them to be intentionally done, and there by off putting, if not insulting. I'll be the first to tell you that the movie could have done without the subplot about Clair and Chris's childhood.

Cast wise it was ok enough. I know the internet certainly bashed the casting choices, but they did what they could. The script wasn't always kind to them though, which led to some cringy moments here and there. (What's a chat room?!?) Leon being the object of lots of comic relief was certainly distracting. We get it. He's a rookie!

So if you're like me and go into it with low expectations, maybe you'll have fun. Just don't think too hard about it. If you're a long time fan of the game franchise and bummed out, fortunately for you the remake of the Resident Evil 2 game was awesome!

The first news of a better adaptation of Resident Evil game (not a reboot, don't call it that, Anderson's series were vaguely based on the game and that always bothered me!) was exciting, but when I saw the first images and trailer I instantly felt I wouldn't like it.

To start, the abysmal take of Leon, one of the main characters, a badass hero, is portrayed here as a useless, stupid wimp, who looks virtually the complete opposite to the character in the game. So it's not the first impression from the images about the total miss cast in terms of look, the character was destroyed in an insulting way and Avan Jogia performance is terrible. That pretty much ruined the movie for me.

Jill Valentine is the other terrible miss cast, even if you put aside the look of the actress, the character doesn't feel like what it was in the game.

I've read an interview with the (terrible) director and writer of this mess, Johannes Roberts, saying basically that he didn't care that much about the look of the actors (bad approach, in my opinion, but well..), but wanted to get actors that feel like the characters in the game. I wonder WHAT game did this guy play. Honestly. Absolute miss.

But if you leave Leon and Jill characters poor adaptations off the movie, it still looks and feel amateurish and poorly written. The dialogs, pace and action, it's quite an eye roll fest.

Lots of scenes are poorly light, and I don't mean too dark, it's just cheap and lousy cinematography. Not all though, some scenes look good, but unfortunately they're the least. The colouring also feels like a bad choice, everything looks yellowish, like if it was filmed using tungsten lights and not fixed afterwards. More amateurism or just poor creative choice.

The action was quite lame, cliché, poorly choreographed and shoot, I don't remember a single one that I liked, and there were some serious continuity issues that felt confusing when Chris and the other guy get attacked fist time in the mansion. (not a real spoiler here, that's obvious to happen, right?)

Now for what I give some credit to this movie, is for the effort on (at least trying) to keep the atmosphere, setting and characters of the game, including some of the classic monsters.

The first minutes after the orphanage scene were good actually, a good pre-first scene of the game RE2, I really liked it, with the truck, the dog... But as soon as Leon appears, it totally spoiled everything.

And the mansion! Along with Chris Redfield casting (the best one, I wish they did a better effort casting all the rest) the mansion was nailed in terms of atmosphere and look, it totally brought me back to my memories playing RE 1, 2 and 3. It was pretty wasted though, I do appreciate that the keys and secret doors and stuff like that from the game appear here, but all that was poorly implemented and the story just drags making no sense. To be honest, half of what was going on, I only understood because I know how the game goes and this was following that line, but the story didn't feel solid at any point as a movie.

The CGI was quite mediocre, but didn't ruin the movie for me, and it gave the classic monsters from the game the chance to be there.

What else to say, looking to the other movies this director and writer has, I'm not surprised this was a bad movie, I'm only sad and disappointed that I'll have to keep waiting for a good RE adaptation, if this one didn't just kill the franchise.

I'd be surprised if any sequels are made for this mess, it looks like the director is hopeful, seeing the after credits scene. If so, I hope someone else picks up on directing and writing and they change Leon's actor.

Welcome to Raccoon City is rather a bore and letdown. How one can make of such material such a bore feast, I dunno. The movies by Anderson starring Milla are not perfect but masterpieces compared to this reboot or whatever it is. I also don't remember that the games are such dragging and boring affairs - this is my note to all of those who boldly claim that Raccoon City is true to the games. There are a few well done creepy scenes but there is too much stuff I don't like: that cop Leon for example, the whole city is on alert and he just sleeps at the reception. The scene with the helicopter pilot at the mansion too, just silly - nobody would play a game in such a moment. So my issues are: all those moments of comedy, some characters act out of place. All in all a movie that meanders between bad and mediocre, and that fails in too many aspects to satisfy, and really does not add anything new, better or special to the franchise.

The acting is average, the story is unoriginal and the whole thing amounts to very little. Many of the characters display the usual 'sassy attitude' and are constantly engaged in yelling at one another, which is a trait commonly used in poorly scripted pieces like this. It's nonsensical for the most part, and a few of the characters are moronic in the extreme, and there's not a trace of atmosphere to be found.

Why this casting?

Why this director?

Why this story?

Why everything in this movie.

Unfortunately, as expected, this movie sucks. While the CGI is not that bad as it was in the trailer, everything else is.

Story is a chopped up blend of first and second game, but written badly. Casting is almost completely wrong. But even worse - characters are all written and crafted wrong. That's not Leon, that's not Jill Valentine, that's not the Redfields and that sure as hell is not Wesker.

Not to say anything against actors, ironically enough - as bad as they got casted - most of the actors in this movie are pretty good actors, from Donal Logue to Kaya Scodelario. They were just given trash script and story to work with.

Zombies look like generic vampires from SyFy tv shows or whatever. Also - there's some inspired but bizzare camerawork at times.

Locations are underutilised and most are kinda bland looking. Atmosphere is eaten pretty fast by the movie's runtime so there's none of that either.

I don't get it. It's not a unknown brand or something. Even more, RE series is on a high point lately as a video game franchise - one excellent remake, one good and two fantastic sequels in the past couple of years.

Yet, movie is given into the hands of a director/writer that hadn't made a good movie in his entire career.

Such shame and wasted potential.