Film Alright but forgettable
For a generic B zombie movie, Welcome to Raccoon City does the job well but not memorably. I assume the poor CGI is a nod to the early games, though there's always the possibility the budget was that strapped. Irons was, ironically considering he's another villain in the games, the most interesting character for me after Claire. Possibly because, unlike many, he realizes shit's going down and he just wants to get out of there, which feels more relatable than fighting zombies to "find the truth" or "get rich". Sadly, the moment he's no longer necessary to the heroes, he gets picked off by a licker. Kinda like Ben, who lives just long enough to deliver two exposition dumps then gets bitten.
By contrast, I couldn't stand Leon for just being "a total dipshit" for pretty much the entire movie. He really needed to learn the principles of Don't Ask, Just Run. When the situation is clearly that incredibly bad, don't ask questions of the person who knows what's going on, follow their lead. And maybe don't be so out of it that you somehow don't hear a truck exploding outside your door.
As a Resident Evil movie, this film felt more related than the original live action films, but that's about it. It's maybe worth watching as a stand alone film, but not so much as "here's something Resident Evil for you fans!"
Film After the dust has settled... it still blows.
(This is a rewrite of a much sloppier review written after seeing the movie for the first time.) Nothing in the movie works:
0) The "faithfulness" is completely superficial. They have the props and set design, but none of the finesse that makes it stick. Its all window dressing to hypnotize sycophants into thinking they like what they see. We get the advertisement of iconic lore, but no exploration of any of them. No context for Lisa Trevor, no look into the horrifying history of the mansion. Im not even gonna list iconic scenes omitted becuase that would be all of them. Just easter eggs teasing another movie that will also suck. For the record; i know the PWA movies didnt even try past the 2nd film but at least they werent boring (personally im a huge "Extinction" apologist). But sadly...
1) Its not thrilling or scary. Set pieces consist of walking through hallways and shooting with little flair or regard for continuity (Chris is shown being swarmed at least twice but seems okay a cut later). Nobody seems to care and treat the zombie apocalypse more like a traffic jam. Iconic monsters show up for a few seconds and are killed with little effort, removing any illusion of manace that ever was. The gore is also very lacking. Most is just awful looking CGI blood, the one headshot is colored black for some reason, the only decapitation is offscreen and Birkin in not nearly as gross as his game counterpart. In general the violence just isnt visceral or personal. If not for all the gratuitous swearing this could've been PG-13 with the above added in post.
2) Characters are lifeless at best and awful at worst. Leon is treated with utter disrespect. He is an incompetent fool who never gets better at any point during the film (and no; pulling a rocket launcher out of his ass at the end to kill the bad guy is not a character arc). The rookie surviving through preserverance and courage was so powerful in the game, but here Leon is a bum who makes Claire and Irons do everything for him. Also, Irons isnt a villian for some reason and sticks around a long time only to mock "Leon" and get killed randomly. You could honestly remove him from the movie it would be exactly the same. You can honestly do that to most of the characters as they have no personality whatsoever. I struggle to point out specifics because there is so little to work with.
3) Surprise! It was dumb to adapt both RE 1 and 2 at the same time. Not only for lore reasons, but they are contradictory genres of horror. You cant have the slow burn of Spencer Mansion and the apocalyptic doomsday clock of Raccoon City at the same time without at least one suffering.
CVX) The movie just feels really cheap. Its hilarious watching the gates of the RPD be "swarmed" by ~5 zombies. Perhaps thats why they set up RC to be a ghost town, because they clearly have no insight into the plight of the people living in such places.
1/10 not even a guilty pleasure.