Film / Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

Let the nightmare begin.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is a survival horror film written and directed by Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down). It is a reboot of the Resident Evil Film Series (itself based on the Capcom video game franchise of the same name) and an adaptation of the first two games. The film was released on November 24th, 2021.

When Claire Redfield (Kaya Scodelario) is tipped off that her long-held distrust of the Umbrella Corporation is warranted, she takes it upon herself to seek the truth and crosses paths with Leon Kennedy (Avan Jogia), an RPD deputy on his first day of service. Meanwhile, Claire's doubtful brother Chris (Robbie Amell) is forced to witness the horrors of the Umbrella Corporation for himself when his S.T.A.R.S. unit is deployed to investigate a potential incident outside town, joined there by Jill Valentine (Hannah John-Kamen) and Albert Wesker (Tom Hopper). Neal McDonough and Donal Logue also appear as William Birkin and Brian Irons, respectively.

Following the original Resident Evil film series, which took many liberties with the source material, Welcome to Raccoon City aimed at being a more faithful adaptation of the games.

The film is not set in the same continuity as the 2022 Resident Evil Netflix series that was released a couple months later.

Raccoon HG Film Productions received a grant of CA$2 million from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation in April 2023 for filming Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles.

Previews: Trailer 1, Trailer 2.

---

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City contains examples of:

• Actor Allusion: Not the first time that Neal McDonough played a Capcom villain.
• Adaptation Amalgamation: The film is an adaptation of the first two games.
• Adaptational Name Change: Series Greater-Scope Villain Oswell E. Spencer is renamed to Oswald Spencer here. This might stem from The Umbrella Chronicles, where an in-game broadcast about the fall of Umbrella similarly referred to Spencer by that name.
• Adaptational Badass: Zig-zagged with the zombies. While still be able to go down with a single headshot, they are capable of sprinting instead of shambling like in the games and seem to have heightened strength. These abilities are lost once they become a full zombie, though they regain them when they become a Crimson Head.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Lisa Trevor in the games, while very much a Tragic Villain, is nonetheless Ax-Crazy and spends the game pursuing the protagonists through the manor. In the movie, she warns Leon about the Licker lurking up in the ceiling, kills said Licker when it attacks Leon and Claire, and helps them find the elevator leading to Spencer Mansion, where they can escape Raccoon City.
  • Annette Birkin in the film is horrified by what her husband has done and is cowering in a corner with Sherry when Wesker comes for the G-Virus. She even grabs a gun and tries to defend Sherry after William has been seemingly killed — something game Annette, even at her most canonically sympathetic, never did.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Somewhat downplayed. In the games, Lisa's mind has been twisted by the experiments that were performed on her, leaving her mentally a child with little intelligence such as starting a fire to keep herself warm, while blindly attacking anyone on site like a wild animal. Here, she retains a little bit of her intelligence, is able to recognize Claire, and guides her and Leon through the orphanage, though she is unable to talk.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Chief Irons is not the nicest guy, but at least in this movie he's a grumpy Da Chief character at worst, whose biggest crime is trying to save his own skin. The video game version of Irons, however, was a Dirty Cop that worked for Umbrella, a Serial Killer, Serial Rapist, and a complete asshole.
  • "Nice" is pushing it but Wesker is nowhere near as awful as his video game counterpart in this version. This Wesker is still The Mole on the take, but here he's portrayed as a Punch-Clock Villain who still does truly care about his teammates and is really only a mole because he views it as his way to leave the dying Raccoon City. Likewise, even after he shoots Birkin's wife, Wesker clearly looks horrified at having done that act. When Wesker seemingly dies, he sincerely apologizes to Birkin's daughter telling her he would have never actually shot her and also apologizes to Chris for betraying the team. Video game Wesker, on the other hand, was a ruthless sociopath who had no qualms about double-crossing his team and killing them, even in the first game.
  • Zig-zagged with Birkin: On one hand, he actively experimented on children at the orphanage, something which he never explicitly did in the original games until the remake. On the other hand, he appears to be a good dad to Sherry, trying to calm her down after she has a nightmare, as opposed to being neglectful of her in the games.
• Adaptational Wimp: Leon is much less competent here than in the games. He was transferred to Raccoon City for accidentally shooting his partner during training, he spends most of the first act asleep (even a tanker truck crashing and exploding directly outside the RPD isn't enough to wake him up, with Irons having to save him from a flaming zombie that walked right into the station), and his rookie status is heavily played up. He is portrayed more as a Naïve Newcomer and comic relief than the Action Survivor of the games.
• Adaptation Deviation: Fans of the games could write an essay on what this film does differently to the games, even acknowledging it as seeming to want to pull from the "remake continuity" that began with Resident Evil 2 (Remake).
  • Firstly, the story is a Compressed Adaptation that merges Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2 and technically Resident Evil 3: Nemesis into a single event. In the games, there's roughly two months between the Mansion Incident from the first game and the outbreak in Raccoon City.
  • The Redfields are established as orphans who grew up in the Raccoon City Orphanage, though Claire ran away and Chris hasn't seen her for five years by the time the film starts. No such backstory exists in the games.
  • Lisa Trevor is sane, rational, docile and secretly haunts the Raccoon Orphanage and met Claire in her childhood. Absolutely none of this is true to the games.
  • The Special Tactics And Rescue Squad has a much smaller list of members in this film than exists in the game.
  • A recording in Birkin's lab beneath the orphanage reveals the Ashford twins as subjects of one of his experiments. In the games, Alexia Ashford was one of Birkin's rivals.
  • The film presents Raccoon City as a largely abandoned Ghost Town whose population has almost entirely moved on due to Umbrella pulling out of the city to set up business somewhere else. In the games, Raccoon City was a thriving community and Umbrella was still actively working out of it until the Zombie Apocalypse.
  • Wesker has no connections to Umbrella at all, and his motivation for stealing Umbrella's bio-organic weapons research is much more opportunistic than in the games.
  • There is mention of a Love Triangle between Chris, Jill and Wesker in the film, which has no basis in the games.
  • In the film, Leon is established to have a politically powerful father who pulled strings to get Leon Reassigned to Antarctica as part of covering up an incident where Leon shot his partner in the ass during training. In the games, no such backstory exists; Leon simply chose to work at Raccoon City Police Department.
  • Birkin is shown speaking coherently and (semi-)rationally after being infected with the G-Virus in the film, whereas in the game only his first form speaks, and even that is restricted to barely coherent moans of his daughter Sherry's name. Birkin also only has two mutation forms in the film, which roughly equate to the first and fourth of the five forms he has in the games.
  • Several characters who have not meet with each other in the games do in this movie such as Jill meeting Leon, Claire and Sherry.
  • Games-wise, Barry Burton (who is Adapted Out) was a close family friend of the Redfields and was a Big Brother Mentor to Chris. Wesker noted Chris' skills and even took interest in training him (even stating Chris makes him proud if he finds the lab first). Film-wise, despite being a Composite Character of Wesker and Barry, Wesker is just seen as Chris' colleague and Chris is the Jealous Romantic Witness to Wesker and Jill partnering up. Chris in the film looks up to Birkin of all people — someone he didn't even meet in the games.
  • Film Wesker attacks the Birkin family under orders to retrieve the G-Virus samples. Game Wesker was uncharacteristally respectful to William and even had plans to help him and his family evacuate Raccoon City.
• Adaptation Dye-Job:
  • Leon Kennedy has long dark hair instead of short dark blond hair.
  • Wesker, being a Composite Character of himself and Barry, does not have his signature slicked back blond hair, instead sporting short brown hair like Barry.
  • Annette and Sherry Birkin have brown hair instead of blonde.
• Adaptation Origin Connection:
  • Lisa Trevor met Claire Redfield as a child growing up at the Raccoon City Orphanage. Previously, she was just a Boss in Mook's Clothing in the first game that had no connection to the Redfields.
  • William Birkin and Umbrella as a whole are revealed to have gotten Chris through college, with Chris saying Birkin was like a father to him and even calling him by his first name.
  • Claire knows Ben Bertolucci from internet chatrooms, and learned of the conspiracy surrounding Umbrella from him. She never even meets him in the games.
• Adapted Out:
  • Of the STARS team that investigates the mansion, the crew consists of Jill, Chris, Wesker, Brad and Richard of all people. Original Alpha Team members Barry and Joseph are nowhere to be found.
  • The original Tyrant, Mr. X and Nemesis, the Tyrants from the first three games and their remakes, are nowhere to be found, with Birkin serving as the film's Final Boss — even being finished off with a rocket launcher, in true Resident Evil fashion. On top of that, Birkin's second, third and fifth mutations are left out, with him being finished off in a version of his fourth form.
  • Also MIA is Rebecca Chambers, The Medic from Bravo Team in RE1 and Chris' support character from that game, as well as the protagonist in Resident Evil 0.
  • Bravo Team as a whole was cut down to Enrico and Kevin Dewley, with Forest, Kenneth, Edward, and Rebecca all missing and Richard replacing Barry on Alpha team.
  • Another notable absence: HUNK and his Umbrella Security Service special forces team who retrieve the G-Virus and gun down Birkin in the process.
• Age Lift:
  • Lisa Trevor was born in the 1950s and thus would had been an adult by the time of Claire's childhood in the games. Here, they are approximately the same age. That being said, her age is almost irrelevant considering the fact that her childhood experimentation left her a Psychopathic Womanchild.
  • Wesker states in his in-game reports that William Birkin is two years his junior. Neal McDonough (Birkin) is older than Tom Hopper (Wesker) by far.
• As You Know: Chief Irons mockingly says this word-for-word when explaining the history of Raccoon City and the Umbrella Corporation to Leon who isn't aware of this.
• Back from the Dead: In The Stinger, it's revealed Ada has revived Wesker.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Claire and Jill have many moments of rescuing others from impending doom.
  • Lisa Trevor saves Claire and Leon from a Licker.
  • After Birkin mutates further and has cornered the Redfield siblings at the back of the train, Leon arrives just in time with a rocket launcher to kill Birkin.
• The Big Guy: Wesker is played by the 6'5" Tom Hopper, so this naturally occurs with him. Wesker towers over everyone else in the cast, and is quite muscular. It was enough that Robbie Amell commented on it behind-the-scenes, mentioning how intimidating it was to act directly opposite to the enormous Hopper.
• Blinded by the Light: After being revived, Wesker's eyes suffer from an acute sensitivity to light. Ada gives him his iconic shades to alleviate this.
• Bloody Tears: This is one of the early symptoms humans show before turning into zombies.
• Brick Joke: Chief Irons at one point sarcastically jokes to Wesker about getting a girl and listening to Journey. Later on when Irons is trying to leave Raccoon City, the song he is listening to on the radio is "Any Way You Want It" by Journey.
• Butt-Monkey: Leon spends the majority of the film being teased by others for his poor job performance and has to be saved by others several times. He rectifies this at the end of the movie by being the one to deal the killing blow on G.
• Composite Character:
  • Wesker confronts Birkin to acquire the virus vials he has in his possession, like HUNK within the games, and is the one who shoots him like GHOST. Personality-wise, he's also portrayed more like Barry, being a trusted, veteran STARS member who's good friends with the team, spends a large part of the mansion mission alongside Jill, and who feels guilty about his betrayal of the team to Umbrella (although this betrayal is of his own volition, as opposed to Barry being blackmailed by Wesker himself). This even carries over into his appearance as well.
  • Speaking of Birkin, his mutated forms borrow a lot from the Tyrant series. He also serves as the film's Final Boss, even being finished off with a rocket launcher.
  • Richard Aiken, a member of Bravo Team in the original game, takes over Barry Burton's role on Alpha Team.
  • Enrico Marini inherits Kenneth J. Sullivan's "honor" of being the victim of the infamous "Turning Around Zombie."
  • Ben's appearance features elements of his original self, but also incorporates the beard from his appearance in the second game's remake.
• Compressed Adaptation: In terms of plot development, this film more or less covers the entire trilogy of video games set in and around Raccoon City. As such, the Mansion Incident and citywide outbreak happen simultaneously rather than over a few months.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Severely downplayed. Chris, who has feelings for Jill, is visibly upset when she chooses to partner with Wesker instead of him.
• Creepy Good: Lisa Trevor is horrifically disfigured and rather terrifying, but she also acts as a childhood friend to Claire and later helps her and Leon get to the Umbrella lab.
• Death by Adaptation: Irons mentions that Oswell E. Spencer had died long before the events of the movie whereas the Umbrella CEO survives the destruction of Raccoon City for another eight years in the games' continuity.
• Death Equals Redemption: When Wesker is mortally shot by Jill, he apologizes to his teammates, claims he didn't intend to shoot Sherry, and directs them to a train they can use to escape Raccoon City. Subverted in the mid-credits scene when he's brought back to life by Ada.
• Demoted to Extra: The game's Sherry Birkin was a major character who Claire protects throughout her time in Raccoon City. This film's Sherry only really serves as a metaphorical dog for her father to pet and could be excised from the plot without consequence.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Wesker dies in Jill's after she shoots him to protect Sherry.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: All over the place.
  • Richard is Devoured by the Horde early in the Mansion Incident rather than bitten and killed by either Yawn or Neptune.
  • Kevin Dewley is similarly Killed Offscreen by zombies before Alpha Team gets to the mansion rather than being, presumably, mauled by Cerberus and discovered in Bravo Team's helicopter.
  • Ditto for Enrico who is Killed Offscreen by the infamous "Turning Around Zombie" rather than shot in the chest by Wesker.
  • Brad Vickers is attacked by a zombie while sitting in Alpha Team's helicopter and crashes into the mansion, then reanimated before being put down by Wesker, rather than killed by Nemesis outside the RPD or by a horde of zombies in a bar and later put out of his misery by either Claire, Leon, or Carlos.
  • Lisa Trevor is killed when Raccoon City implodes rather than finished off when the mansion explodes.
  • The truck driver from the opening of RE2 is infected by his dog here rather than a random zombie. He also survives the crash and is put down by Chief Irons.
  • Speaking of, Chief Irons is taken out by a Licker rather than Birkin or Mr. X.
  • Ditto for Ben Bertolucci, who's killed by a zombie.
  • Birkin is killed by Wesker instead of U.S.S. Special Agent GHOST who was on HUNK's team, with Wesker replacing Alpha Team's actions, as seen under Composite Character. His final form is also put down by Leon with a rocket launcher rather than exploding along with the train.
  • Annette is shot in the head by Wesker rather than crushed/slashed to death by her mutated husband.
  • Wesker is killed by Jill to prevent him from killing Sherry rather than the recently awakened Tyrant. As in the games, though, he gets better.
  • Finally, Raccoon City itself is destroyed by being imploded, implicitly by Umbrella, rather than having a nuclear missile fired at it by the U.S. government.
• Dirty Cop: Though not stated outright, Irons is clearly on Umbrella's payroll as in the games, but it's unknown to what extent. He at least knows about zombies and the passageway to the Spencer mansion from the Raccoon Orphanage and has imprisoned Ben Bertolucci.
• Dramatic Ammo Depletion: Irons wastes all his ammo shooting blindly around the RPD garage as the zombie dog stalks him, and once he's cornered, his revolver gives an empty click. Lucky for him, Claire shows up.
• Dying Town: In this movie, Raccoon City is a Company Town so dependent on the Umbrella Corporation that with Umbrella moving its operations elsewhere, the only people left are either the last few Umbrella employees who haven't been transferred out yet, or people who are too poor to move elsewhere.
• Exact Words: Jill bets Wesker she can knock a ketchup bottle off Leon's head without even looking. When he takes the bet, rather than shoot the bottle with the toy dart gun he gave her, she instead throws it at Leon, waking him up and knocking the bottle to the ground.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: A staple of the series, after Birkin injects himself with the G-virus and undergoes a gruesome mutation.
• Faux Affably Evil: William Birkin plays up the image of being a kind, caring man but is actually a sinister doctor who creates monsters and conducts his virus experiments on the citizens of Raccoon City (including children). He even reveals that despite outwardly treating Chris like a son, he just sees him as a pawn to be used.
• Foreshadowing:
  • As a joke, Jill shoots Wesker with a dart gun. She later fatally shoots him in the back to protect Sherry.
  • Chris jokes about dying in Wesker's arms. Wesker later dies in Jill's arms.
  • After the lights turn on in the secret tunnel, Wesker comments "she was telling the truth", indicating that the person who left the Palm Pilot, and thus the person who was in contact with him, was a woman. It turns out that this woman is Ada Wong, who revives Wesker at the end of the film.
  • Chief Irons jokingly tells Wesker to take his "girlfriend" to Gatlin for a romantic night out. At the end of the film, a dying Wesker tells Chris and the others to board a train that will take them to Gatlin where they'll be safe from the explosion. This includes Jill, whom he has feelings for.
• Hard-to-Light Fire: Happens repeatedly when Chris is separated from the others at the mansion and loses his flashlight, forcing him to fight off a herd of zombies by the light of muzzle-flashes and a lighter. The latter, naturally, requires multiple tries to ignite, and does so repeatedly due to it going out every time another of the infected attacks him.
• Harmful to Minors: Wesker shoots William and Annette Birkin dead right in front of Sherry.
• Headbutt of Love: After she saves him from a crashing helicopter, Jill and Wesker share a tender one. Immediately followed by Wesker revealing his betrayal.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: Leon doesn't hear a fuel truck exploding outside the police station despite sitting at the front desk in front of the open door because he's wearing headphones and is half-asleep. He only is jolted awake when Chief Irons guns down the flaming zombie that emerged from the wreckage and shambled into the police station.
• Homage Shot: The first trailer shows a shot that references the cutscene of the first zombie encountered by the player in the original game.
• Iconic Attribute Adoption Moment: In The Stinger, Wesker is blinded as a side effect of the procedure used to resurrect him. Ada offers him his signature sunglasses, which he puts on.
• Just in Time: The survivors barely get far enough down the train tunnel to escape when Raccoon City implodes.
• Love Triangle: While not given much focus, there is one between Chris, Jill, and Wesker with Chris apparently having feelings for Jill, who has feelings for Wesker, who seems to return them.
• Loser Has Your Back: When they reunite in the Umbrella lab beneath the Spencer estate, Chris is dumbfounded that New Meat Leon has lasted this long.
• Mythology Gag:
  • When the outbreak first begins ripping through Raccoon City, an infected woman scrawls "Itchy. Tasty." on Chris Redfield's window with blood.
  • The T-Virus infection spreads slowly, and gradually erodes the victim's intelligence, much like how a diary in the original game depicted the writer losing his humanity over the course of several days.
  • Whilst hanging out together in the diner at the start of the film, Jill steals Wesker's sandwich and declares it "Jill's Sandwich" before taking a bite.
  • While hanging out in Chris's house, Claire notices a child crawling under a table and asks if he needs help. To which he replies, "You need help," just like the first conversation between Claire and Sherry in Resident Evil 2 (Remake). Fittingly, just like in the game, this is followed by Claire being attacked by the child in question's parent, though by the boy's zombified mother this time rather than Sherry's mutated father.
  • When they are at the police station, Jill jokingly asks which one would be a worse way to die — getting eaten by a snake or devoured by a shark, a reference to Yawn and Neptune respectively from the first Resident Evil. Bonus points for Richard being present when she asks this, as both options happen to him in the remake of the first game, provided he doesn't die to poisoning from Yawn first.
  • Chris at one point talks about how good Claire is at picking locks which can be seen as a funny call-back to "The Master of Unlocking" quote from Barry in the first game. Granted, in the game itself, it was Jill who was the skilled lock picker.
  • Birkin spends most of the film wearing a t-shirt advertising an Umbrella branch in Tall Oaks.
  • Leon's introduction comes from side material for the original Resident Evil 2, which explained him being Late to the Tragedy because he'd spent the previous night drinking heavily after a bad breakup. The remake and other adaptations explain his late arrival in more... responsible fashion. Likewise, his status as the New Meat that gets no respect is a nod to his pre-Resident Evil 4 reputation of being walked all over by the rest of the game's cast.
  • The first zombie Chris and Richard encounter has its back to them as it feasts on a fellow member of S.T.A.R.S.. Then it slowly turns its head to face them.
  • The keys Lisa gave Leon and Claire are based on those they have to use in Resident Evil 2 and its remake.
  • Not only does the Raccoon City Orphanage from Resident Evil 2 (Remake) play an important part in the story, but both times it is visited, there is a prominent depiction of the infamous creepy doll from that area in the games.
  • Whilst exploring the lab beneath the Orphanage, Claire and Leon stumble across a film projector that plays a version of the infamous "Alfred and Alexia Ashford's Home Movie" from Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, although this one is edited to have William Birkin present and taking notes as the twins "play" with a dragonfly.
  • Wesker plays "Moonlight Sonata" on a piano to unlock a secret door that leads to Wesker's underground lab, a reference to a puzzle from Resident Evil.
  • The mid-credits stinger of Wesker in a body bag on a table sitting up is likely an homage to the opening eye-catch sequence added in the 2002 remake of Resident Evil.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Wesker's character vignette shows him pulling a gun on Jill and saying "Maybe I'm not giving you a choice." In the actual film, he pulls her aside to shoot a zombie behind her, and that line is said to William Birkin when the latter refuses to hand over his vials of the G-Virus.
• New Meat: Leon's status as a rookie and newcomer is emphasized greatly, and he is often shown needing explanations about what's going on.
• Noodle Incident: Leon Kennedy’s transfer to Raccoon City happened supposedly due to him shooting his partner in the ass during training.
• One-Winged Angel: William Birkin injects himself with the G-Virus and progressively mutates into a horrific monster that serves as the film's Final Boss.
• Orphanage of Fear: Chris and Claire grow up in one run by William Birkin in the prologue.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Wesker is only trying to line his own pockets, and never directly antagonizes his fellow cops throughout the movie. Notably, the film completely erases his game counterpart's long history as an agent of Umbrella who helped oversee the T-Virus experiments and deliberately maneuvered S.T.A.R.S. to investigate the Spencer mansion, instead having him simply be a hired asset that Umbrella sends in as a last resort.
• Punctuated Pounding: Claire vs. a mutated Birkin:
  Claire: Get... [bang] the fuck... [bang] away... [bang, Dramatic Gun Cock] from my brother.
• Quarantine with Extreme Prejudice: Not wanting any infectees or potential whistleblowers escaping Raccoon's destruction, Umbrella Security Service blocks all the roads leading out of town, shooting and tear-gassing anyone who tries to leave.
• Race Against the Clock: Raccoon City will be destroyed at 6am, leaving the characters only a few hours to escape the city.
• Race Lift: In the games, Leon and Jill are depicted as Caucasian in Leon's case, and half-Caucasian and half-Japanese but generally Caucasian-passing in Jill's case. Here, they're portrayed by actors of mixed ancestry — Avan Jogia (of partial Indian descent) and Hannah John-Kamen (half-Nigerian).
• Repurposed Pop Song: The first trailer is set to a slowed-down version of "What's Up" by 4 Non Blondes.
• Shot-for-Shot Remake:
  • Downplayed example. The film isn't an exact recreation of the games, but Johannes Roberts said in an interview that it does take inspiration from them and features a few shots directly lifted from them.
  • The zombie Chris and Richard encounter replicate the first zombie encounter from the first game, down to eating a S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team member, then turning its head.
  • A film reel showing the Ashford Twins from Code: Veronica is replicated almost perfectly from a cutscene in said game.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After the tanker explodes in front of the police station, Chief Irons packs up his office and attempts to leave the city. Unfortunately, Umbrella set up roadblocks on all the exits, even shooting at Irons and other civilians that also tried to leave.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Jill's outfit is sleeveless, showing her muscular arms.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: A flaming zombie walks into the RPD to “Crush” by Jennifer Paige (which is playing in Leon’s headphones). It immediately stops once the zombie gets shot. Later, when Irons tries to escape Raccoon City only to find out the exits are blocked, Irons’ car gets shot at while he backs out with Journey’s “Any Way You Want It” is playing in the background.
• Stab the Scorpion: After Wesker reveals to Jill that he's on the take, he reaches for his sidearm as if to pull a She Knows Too Much on her... only to shoot a zombie sneaking up on her.
• The Stinger: The mid-credit scene revels that Wesker is still alive and he is confronted by Ada Wong, who also gives Wesker his trademark black sunglasses.
• The Stool Pigeon: Claire is spurred to investigate the Umbrella Corporation on the word of Ben Bertolluci who sends her the message.
• Suddenly Shouting: When Chief Irons tries to explain the absence of officers Marini and Dooley, Leon calmly asks what’s a Spencer Mansion. Irons starts talking calmly until he abruptly goes “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE, LEON?!”
• Too Dumb to Live: Ben completely stops paying attention to the badly infected man in his cell to monologue at Leon. When the man turns, he promptly kills said whistleblower immediately.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Zig-zagged. The trailers make absolutely no attempt to hide that Wesker is The Mole, with his character vignette showing him pulling a gun on Jill and saying "Maybe I'm not giving you a choice", but in the movie itself he's a Punch-Clock Villain with his canonical evil qualities greatly reduced and he never directly opposes the heroes.
• Trigger-Happy: Jill is very quick to resort to shooting things. It's best exemplified when she pulls out her service pistol to shoot a ketchup bottle off a sleeping Leon's head, forcing Wesker to stop her and explain he meant for her to use a toy dart gun. She also shoots a crow dangerously close to Wesker as they approach the mansion.
• Truer to the Text: This adaptation returns the film series to its video game roots with an emphasis on the survival horror vibe of the originals.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: The film cuts between two main settings, the Raccoon City Police Department and the Spencer mansion.
• Waking Up at the Morgue: In The Stinger, Wesker awakens in a body bag after being resurrected by Ada Wong.
• Water Source Tampering: Ben attributes the spread of the virus to this method.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Wesker stops Jill from using an actual gun to fulfill a bet to shoot a ketchup bottle off of the sleeping Leon's head, instead giving her a toy dart gun.
  • As they approach the Spencer estate, Jill shoots an infected crow over Wesker's shoulder, leading to him to threaten to confiscate her weapon.
• You Are in Command Now: Played for Laughs by Irons, who puts Leon in charge of the police station while he tries to escape town. When Irons returns, Leon asks if he is still in charge or not.
• You Don't Look Like You: Most of the actors generally look like the characters from the games... except for Leon, who has shaggy black hair and a goatee instead of his signature curtain cut and clean shave, looking closer to Carlos Oliveira (particularly his RE3R incarnation) than his namesake.

---