Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 11, 2022

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.

Raccoon City, once a thriving place under the auspices of the ginormous Umbrella Corporation, is a shell of its former self. Umbrella has moved out and only a few people remain. Claire Redfield (Kaya Scodelario), who grew up in the city in the care of an orphanage with her brother Chris (Robbie Amell), has returned to investigate why the town is really dying: she suspects that there may be contaminants in the water. With rookie Raccoon PD cop Leon S. Kennedy (Avan Jogia) and STARS (Special Tactics And Rescue Service) team members Chris, Jill Valentine (Hannah John-Kamen), and Albert Wesker (Tom Hopper) at her side, Claire not only unravels the truth but faces deadly apocalyptic consequences that will threaten her life, her town, and the world.

The film takes place in 1998. The first Resident Evil game released in 1996, so chronologically this is something of a backwards move but it is also a welcome move that sees the franchise literally return the story to its roots. This is clearly designed as a reboot of the film franchise that ignores the Jovovich films (and it is strange not to see her in a Resident Evil film, but at the same time it’s fun to see an updating that moves the filmed franchise iteration into a new direction). Still, try as it might to capture so much of the atmosphere and storyline from the first and second games, the film plays hollowly, not lacking in scares but lacking that intangible sense of importance and originality. It’s a shallow film, one that tries hard to recreate the video game magic for the screen but ultimately demonstrates that, just maybe, this is a franchise destined to play better with a controller, not popcorn, in the hands.

The characters are fairly flat an uninteresting, a strange observation considering there’s much more dynamic depth in the games, but here between rote plot maneuverings and fairly flat performances, there’s not much room for the characters to stretch and develop in any meaningful ways. Mostly, the film becomes about action, gunplay, and the like – in the same vein as so many other movies – and it cannot find much separation from the pack, even as it’s well aware of what makes the games work and incorporating so many little bits and pieces of the video game experience into the movie. The film is slow out of the gate and never picks up much momentum, even as the action really gets underway because it’s nothing more than a rehash of so many other zombie action films from the past couple of decades. Essentially, this is a product of its exterior with little reason to become involved once the novelty of a fully realized Raccoon City and all of the other little touches just become part of the scene.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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."

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

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.

• Replicating the DNA (1080p, 10:58): Exploring this film's faithfulness to the original first two games, cast and characters, and more.
• Cops, Corpses, and Chaos (1080p, 8:06): Horror mood and influences, humor, cast chemistry, Johannes Roberts' direction, shooting locations, and more.
• Zombies, Lickers and the Horrors of Resident Evil (1080p, 5:40): Looking at some of the creatures and zombies seen throughout the film. The piece focuses on design, prosthetics, and special effects.
• Previews (1080p): Additional Sony titles.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.