Resident Evil: You're not Welcome to Raccoon City. (Rant/spoilers)

[Formless]

This is a rant from a long term of the Resident Evil fan. Those who aren't familiar with the franchise and enjoyed the movie for its own merits, kudos to you.

Let me start by saying, very few things sets me off to the point where I have to sound my own displeasure at a product. I may comment, I may voice an opinion, but this movie managed to lure me out of my composure. Perhaps because I am a loving fan of the franchise. And while any product can be a point of contention between fans, due to its proper portrayal of a story, or lack of, I found myself ... wondering what were they actually going with this.

A few things I want to clarify. I don't care about the casting choices. This is a point often brought up and I want to say it up front, that did not affect my viewing experience.

What really got me were the characters. Was there anyone involved in the movie who was likely familiar with the games? The movie is supposed to portray the events from the two first games in the franchise. And yet, none of the characters, not one was portrayed the way they were in the games. And it is astonishing to see them pay so much details to the locales. I mean it might be a low budget movie (by recent hollywood standards) but they did a decent job.

And yet ... Who are these characters we saw in the movie?

Leon, a rookie cop who found himself smackdab in the middle of an outbreak on his first day on the job ... is a loser. In the games, he was an upstanding character willing to do what he can as an officer of the law. And in this movie ... he's a bumbling buffoon who can't sense a threat if it hit him in the head.

Jill Valentine. A competent officer who have some good head over her shoulders, was boiled down to a love struck girls panting after Wesker's heels.

Then we have Claire. A college student looking for her brother who did not contact her back for a long while. A good girl with maternal instincts who fights through the outbreak and helps out a little girl called Cherry through the most traumatizing event in her life. Enter this movie's Claire. A bad girl who is more competent than trained police officers, and somehow is always there at the right time to save everyone. Quite frankly I was surprised Claire didn't rush in for my help when I had to swat a mosquito while I watched the movie. But apparently the writer of the movie really ... really ... really liked this character.

Albert Wesker. One of the founders of Umbrella, a test subject himself for Umbrella and a back stabbing mastermind who orchestrated the demise of his finest men among STARS to further study the effects of the T-virus. Well apparently that's not a good hook for a character, so let's turn him into a jock. Just some dude working as a cop and is "selected" by Umbrella at zero hour for something.

Annette Birkin. A major Antagonist in the second game. A scientist who was trying to save her husband and his life work. Some of her actions lead to the disasters that happened, yet there was still some humanity left inside her. Well that doesn't seem like a good hook either, so let's have her as a hapless wife who is just there for the sake of having her name in the credits.

The story itself, they actually managed to twist a simple premise. The Redfields, characters established in the games as good people who witnessed the horrors of Umbrella and began working to take them down in their own ways. But the movie thought it was better to have them as orphans brought up by Umbrella. It seems they swapped their past story with Wesker's from the games. But where does that leave Wesker? Oh who cares, he's just the jock. You know, those guys we see in movies who are just there to deliver a line or act as a living prop for a scene. Some of the scenes were changed for the pacing, and that's fine. But it felt like they spent over an hour establishing the outbreak, without actually establishing the outbreak.

And due to the lack of creativity in the director/writer (who apparently was never involved in any Resident Evil project) 3 scenes involved someone "unaware of the threat" because of music. Not sure if Sony wanted to advertise their products as truly noise cancelling, or the director was stupid enough to think headphones or earbuds can cancel out the sound of a freaking tanker crashing on your doorstep. And don't get me started on that dumb scene where the flaming corpse walks in all casual to the sound of music like some poorly CGI'ed portion with some bad background music.

I really have no idea what they wanted to achieve with this movie. The live action movie series was bad, but at least it had its own thing going on, so really, its not like they said they wanted to duplicate the game's narrative. But this? Its supposed to borrow directly from the games, and yet we got familiar names on characters we don't know, and a story that doesn't even tells itself properly. Just some scenes slapped together that rather than immerse you in the atmosphere, ends up being disappointing in execution.

I am a disgruntled fan who did not find this product satisfying. If you share the sentiment or think otherwise, feel free to pitch in.

[Wolven Soul]

I have not seen it, but due to rants like these and a few videos, I do not plan on ever watching it.  Guess my last hope is the series. 

[Forest Huntress]

Yeah I guess I'll hold out on watching it, luckily I have other zombie shows to catch up on.

[JesusSwOrd]

that is probably the funniest thing i have seen in a month. thank you, getcrazykid, you just made my day. ROTFL "its got a turbo rotary engine with headers and pistons and all that?"

[persephone325]

I definitely agree with you. I'm not a "hardcore" fan, but I am a fan. This movie just pissed me off - especially the way they ruined Leon.

And it sucks even more because I could see the good ideas they had. They had a good atmosphere, but piss poor execution.

[Inkidu]

That Netflix series wasn't much better. We're just going to have to accept that Resident Evil will always been done dirty.

[persephone325]

That Netflix series wasn't much better. We're just going to have to accept that Resident Evil will always been done dirty.

I don't plan on watching the series after everything I heard about it.

Personally, I will always default back to Anderson's movies. Compared to Welcome to Raccoon City? Those get gold stars from me. At least when they introduced canon characters, they acted like they do in the game.

[Eggyweggs]

It's weird that Resident Evil is doing so well game wise but is a total dumpster fire in all the other mediums. It's a pretty easy and well trod ground both subject matter wise and story wise. I went back and read the books too and well ...they are good as a pulpy fun action book about zombies can be expected to be. Maybe adapt one of those?

[RedRose]

It's weird that Resident Evil is doing so well game wise but is a total dumpster fire in all the other mediums. It's a pretty easy and well trod ground both subject matter wise and story wise. I went back and read the books too and well ...they are good as a pulpy fun action book about zombies can be expected to be. Maybe adapt one of those?

. I've wondered that too