Milla Jovovich is one of my all-time crushes. Because of that, I find the Resident Evil movies to be immensely rewatchable thanks to the fact that she spends most of her time in the franchise scantily clad and kicking ass. Which is why rebooting the series without her seems so confounding to me. It’s kind of like making Terminator without Arnold Schwarzenegger or Rocky without Sylvester Stallone. Needless to say, I went into Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City with a sense of trepidation. Much to my surprise, I found a few things to enjoy about it, even if it was frustratingly Milla-free.
This reboot takes place in the late ‘90s (which means people use beepers and say things like, “What’s a chatroom?”) in the decaying titular city. The skeevy Umbrella Corporation is about to pick up at take their multi-billion-dollar operation elsewhere, leaving the town a hollow shell. Those left behind are forced to deal with the remnants of Umbrella’s latest experiment: A bunch of zombies. Soon, the infection spreads, and the last remaining human survivors must find a way out of the town before the company bombs it back to the stone age.
Writer/director Johannes (The Strangers: Prey at Night) Roberts brought a real John Carpenter vibe to the proceedings. (Right down to the Carpenter-esque font.) Unlike Paul W.S. Anderson’s frenetic action-heavy approach, Roberts favors building up a sense of dread. While letting that marinate, he’ll occasionally pepper in a couple of humorous sequences set to pop music, which helps to alleviate the tension and keep the audience on its toes. His assured camerawork combined with the classy cinematography helps to create a real air of atmosphere. Even though the film drags its feet in places, it always looks and feels appropriately creepy. Too bad the unwieldy running time (107 minutes) and lackluster third act ultimately prevent the film from really cutting loose. Also, for a zombie flick, it’s seriously lacking in the gore department, so I’ve got to take points off for that too.
The younger members of the cast are rather interchangeable and forgettable. Fortunately, Donal Logue is great as the asshole Yelling Police Captain. He effortlessly steals the movie and injects the film with a little zest whenever it threatens to bog down. I also liked seeing Neal McDonough (no stranger to video game movie reboots after starring in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li) pop up as the evil scientist guy/Final Boss.
I was never a big fan of the Resident Evil video games. I was always more of a House of the Dead kind of guy. I can’t really say how faithful this version is in comparison to the Anderson’s films (although it seems like they took some liberties with the characters), but taken on its own terms, it's a decent outbreak/zombie flick. If Milla had been in it, it probably would’ve been in the middle of the pack of Resident Evil movies. As it stands, it’s probably the fourth or fifth best one.
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