Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City movie review: Mummifying the franchise with a recast retread

A still from Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
A: Horror/ action
Dir: Johannes Robert
Cast: Robbie Amell, Chad Rook, Hannah John-Kamen
Rating: 1.5/5

The Resident Evil franchise has gone beyond bearable in the past decade of routine, unimaginative franchise instalments - Milla Jovovich, its lead star being the only charismatic draw that might have pulled you in to start with. Unfortunately, this issue doesn't even have that. Johannes Roberts, who takes over the reins of the Resident Evil series from the super prolific Paul WS Anderson, focuses his energies on pandering to the video game aficionados. Clearly, he is not interested in creating a movie experience - just hitting on references and elements from the game to evince nostalgic interest.

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The characters and scenarios are so thin and facile that non-players will struggle to piece them together. Chris Redfield (Robbie Amell), Jill Valentine (Hannah John-Kamen), Albert Wesker (Tom Hopper), and Leon S Kennedy (Avan Jogia) lead the way with Donal Logue appearing as Chief Irons are akin to parody cops wilfully engaging in nightmarish horror action. There's neither atmospheric tension nor a sense of dread to make this gamey experience interesting. There's nothing inspirational in the way the narrative faithfully follows the game without developing any cinematic excitement. The base premise for this so-called prequel is from Resident Evil 2, but while that film generated a fair bit of adrenaline rush, this one is just a laidback ritualistic horror movie. There's plenty of gore, but none of it is imaginatively presented. This is basically a brand extension masquerading as a horror action movie. Jerky action and awkward storytelling make this like a bad joke - not the dread-inducing nightmare that it should have been.

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