Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City - A Reboot of the Resident Evil Franchise

This movie was just released in Indonesian cinemas yesterday. Unlike our past habit to wait till the weekend to see, we decided to do it yesterday. It played in many theaters including the one that was located very near our home. Well let's get to the details now.

Brief Story Line

Claire Redfield (Kaya Scodelario - Crawl, Spinning Out TV series etc) returned back to her hometown Raccoon city in 1998 to meet with her older brother Chris (Robbie Amell - Desperados, Upload TV series etc) as she suspected something was happening there related to the Umbrella Corporation. Chris was working with the police department together with fellow officers such as Jill Valentine (Hannah John-Kamen - Ant-man and the Wasp, The Stranger TV series etc), Wesker (Tom Hopper - Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, Blak Sails TV series etc), the rookie cop Leon (Avan Jogia - Ghost Wars TV series etc) and few others under captain Irons (Donal Lugue - Gotham TV series etc).

When there seemed to be some virus outbreak resulting to people becoming zombies, Claire who was separated from her brother had to find ways to save themselves. Meanwhile one of the leading scientists in Umbrella corporation William Birkin (Neal McDonough - Project Blue Book TV series etc) was trying to flee from the city with his family.

So how would the story conclude? You could find them in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Resident Evil movies (the live adaptation at least) were one of those franchise that I have seen all. Despite playing very little of the game many years ago, I could not remember all the characters involved. In fact the reason why I saw those movies were not because of me being a big fan of the games, but more towards my fondness of the action and intensity. I loved watching the lead characters fighting against zombies with all the suspense throughout.

This movie was similar to the ones I have seen, where the fight against zombies were the main focus. As the story was set in 1998 and they chose to put the main attention to Claire Redfield and her brother Chris (hence it's a reboot), it gave a different feel from the Resident Evil series starring Milla Jovovich as Alice. But the action & intensity, especially towards the end and the occasional jump scare scenes that successfully surprised me and mostly my wife, were strongly felt just like they did in the previous movies. However, one thing that I felt a bit lacking was the fast pace especially in the beginning. I thought it took rather long to get to the good part. And even during the supposedly full intense moments, sometimes the pace slowed down a lot that it reduced the suspense feel.

From what I read on the internet, this movie was rather faithful to the story line of the game Resident Evil 2 which meant that it should be nice for fans of the game. The director Johannes Roberts who had some experience in directing suspenseful movies such as 47 Meters Down, The Strangers: Prey at Night etc, wanted to emphasize on the tones of that particular game, such as the night (very dark) settings and the location at Raccoon City Police Department office & Spencer Mansion. For me though, that constant dark setting sometimes made it hard to look at clearly.

Those who had seen the previous movies would have been familiar with the characters in here as they appeared in those films before. The cast were pretty decent to my opinion, although they did not leave a really memorable impression either, except maybe for the character of Leon who gave a bit of humor feel in an otherwise dark tone. The zombie effects were pretty standard but the CGI was surprisingly not that good. My wife and I felt one of the major scene in Spencer Mansion was too obviously done by computer which rather disappoint me. The sound effects were not bad even for a standard sound system (as felt especially during the fights and those jump scares). This film had duration of 107 minutes including closing credit. It has an interesting mid end credit scene which again would have significance to fans of the game series/movies. 

Overall this was quite OK and pretty entertaining for those who like to see fight against zombies, and likely even more enjoyable for fans of the games as it has many references to them. But if you want a high quality zombie movies with nonstop intensity, dramatic moments and characters development, then this definitely would not be to your liking. Not sure if there is going to be a sequel of this new reboot, as it did not seem to be too successful commercially. So if you just want to see a modestly suspenseful zombie fights, then you can give it a try. It's currently playing in all cinema chains in Indonesia.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars