6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Once the booming home of pharmaceutical giant Umbrella Corporation, Raccoon City is now a dying Midwestern town. The company’s exodus left the city a wasteland…with great evil brewing below the surface. When that evil is unleashed, the townspeople are forever…changed…and a small group of survivors must work together to uncover the truth behind Umbrella and make it through the night.
Starring: Kaya Scodelario, Hannah John-Kamen, Robbie Amell, Tom Hopper, Avan JogiaHorror | 100% |
Action | 75% |
Sci-Fi | 59% |
Mystery | 5% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City reboots the franchise but doesn't revamp it. Unlike the Paul W.S. Anderson/Milla Jovovich films, this one aims for a more structurally faithful adaptation of the popular video game franchise, which it does to mixed result. The film is loud and grisly but it's also hollow and flat. It brings nothing new to the table that hasn't been seen in the other Resident Evil movies (beyond the superficial). Its action, cadence, and characters are lacking in genuine interest and purpose beyond bringing a smorgasbord of characters from the games to the screen.
The digital video source leaves this 1080p Blu-ray looking very noisy, especially in low light (which is much of the movie) and very evident right out of the gate during the flashback sequence in the orphanage. Otherwise, the picture looks very good. Black levels, vital to the experience, are pleasantly deep without crushing detail. Skin tones are excellent. Color depth and definition are strong, particularly blood but also various other gory and transformative zombie details, not to mention clothes (the famous red leather jacket, for example). Still, the movie is very dark by nature and the production design does not favor a barrage of bright colors, but what is here looks very good. Texturally, the picture is solid, too. It's well capable of yielding high end textures, both real and prosthetic, to give the gore that visibly accurate edge. Clothes and faces fare very well for essential detail. There are no encode problems of note.
On Blu-ray, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City earns a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack (Sony reserves the Atmos track for the companion and concurrently released UHD). And with a 5.1 track this good, who needs Atmos? This track is loud, bass happy and very well balanced. For all of the full-on intensity -- whether rumbling trucks, heavy gunfire, explosions, and all sorts of high-octane audio cues -- there's no lacking in clarity and precision for placement. The front is stretched far, the surrounds engage fully, and the track is nothing less than a wild ride of intense sonic fun. Music is clear, action is a delight, atmosphere is full and vivid...nothing is left to the imagination. With fine dialogue reproduction, there's no reason not to label this track as "reference."
This Blu-ray release of Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City includes three featurettes. A DVD copy of the film and a Movies Anywhere digital
copy code are included with purchase.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City: it could be a lot better, and it could be a lot worse. It falls into that middle ground morass where so many other films find themselves these days. This is a stale and slow film, one that aims for video game faithfulness but really only finds any success at the superficial level, and even then it's so trite in places as to wear thin before the action comes, and the action itself is so generic and bland that the film just never takes off. Nothing around the edges -- the acting, the gore, the gunplay -- is worth writing home about, either. Sony's Blu-ray delivers solid video, reference audio, and a few extras. Rent it.
2021
Limited Edition
2021
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