Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (March 9, 2022)
Back in 2002, the popular Resident Evil series of video games leapt to movie screens with a tale that starred Milla Jovovich as the main character. It didn’t make a ton of money, but I guess it proved profitable enough to spawn a franchise that lasted a total of six flicks.
The Jovovich series concluded in 2016, but matters didn’t remain dormant for long. 2021 brought Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, a reboot sans Milla.
The Midwestern town called Raccoon City used to boast the lively economic presence of the Umbrella Corporation, a massive pharmaceutical company. When that business essentially departs, the location becomes a depressed wasteland.
In 1998, former resident Claire Redfield (Kaya Scodelario) returns to visit her estranged brother Chris (Robbie Amell). Both lived in an orphanage and had some acquaintance with Umbrella because that company’s researcher Dr. William Birkin (Neal McDonough) experimented on fellow orphan Lisa Trevor (Marina Mazepa).
When Claire comes back, she doesn’t just find a town in the throes of economic decline. In addition, nefarious activities at Umbrella created literal monsters that now threaten humans.
Usually when a franchise goes into reboot mode, it’s because the original series petered out and the rights owners want to bring in new blood to generate new cash. However, that doesn’t fit the situation with Resident Evil.
The sixth entry – 2016’s Final Chapter - appears to have been the most successful of the bunch financially. With a fairly low $40 million budget, it brought in over $300 million worldwide, so it turned a tidy profit.
So why start from scratch? I would guess that Jovovich and filmmaker/husband Paul WS Anderson just didn’t want to make more movies. Both spent 14 years with the franchise, so if that’s the case, I can’t blame them.
Any hopes City might spawn a popular new series seem DOA, though, as the movie made a mere $38 million worldwide. Granted, because it came out during the pandemic, one wouldn’t expect the same ticket sales the film might’ve gotten in pre-COVID times, but that still seems like a pretty poor showing that makes a sequel seem questionable.
That doesn’t rule out a second flick in this reboot series, as the franchise’s built-in fanbase seems too substantial for the producers to ignore. Still, even with these caveats, one imagines they expected more than $38 million in sales.
I can’t fault fans who ignored City, as it provides a less than engaging tale. Elsewhere on this disc, writer/director Johannes Roberts tells us how hard he and the crew worked to make City a copy of the original games.
Roberts and company succeed, but I don’t mean that as a compliment. While City indeed often feels like a video game come to life, it rarely comes across as an engaging movie.
Face it: something that offers fun to play may not seem enjoyable to watch. Sure, I know that millions of people like to view “E Sports”, but the thrill there comes from the ability to see someone perform with skills the observer lacks as well as the competition involved.
A movie lacks either of those factors, so it needs to bring more than the basic visceral excitement of a game. City can’t do that.
I get the sense Roberts focused so hard on his desire to remain faithful to the games that he forgot to develop the characters and story into something worthy of a movie adaptation. City barely attempts a plot, and the roles seem sketchy at best.
While we get basics for both, City never manages to make either stimulating. Both the characters and the narrative exist as an excuse for gory action.
At its heart, City offers a zombie movie. That acts as a well-worn genre, so City needs to find something creative to stand out from the pack.
Outside of the connection to the video games, City lacks that fresh touch. Though it gives us some creatures that theoretically spice up the old tropes, most of it just comes across as same-old, same-old.
None of the actors manages to do much with their thin parts. Mostly we see a mix of attractive 20-somethings and they fail to come across as memorable.
Given his status as a veteran actor, I hoped McDonough might bring some kick to his villainous role. Unfortunately, he seems just as forgettable as the others.
Really, “forgettable” feels like the best term to describe City. It never becomes a terrible movie, but it lacks much creativity and ends up as just another zombie flick.
Footnote: a tag scene – and potential sequel lead-in – appears early in the end credtts.
