So, is Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City a perfect movie? No. The pacing is uneven, the script tries to cram too much lore into 107 minutes, and some character interpretations will divide the fanbase.
However, is it a good Resident Evil movie? Yes.
It is the first film in the franchise's history that feels like it was made by people who actually played the games. It captures the isolation, the frustration of locked doors, the terror of limited resources, and the campy fun of the dialogue. It swaps the high-octane action of the 2000s for the survival horror atmosphere of the 2010s remakes.
If you go in expecting a cinematic masterpiece, you might be disappointed. But if you go in wanting to see the Spencer Mansion realized in live-action, wanting to see Leon struggle with a flamethrower, and wanting to hear the iconic "Itchy Tasty" diary entry read aloud, this movie is a treasure.
It is a spooky, bloody, flawed, and incredibly fun romp through Raccoon City. It proves that sometimes, the scariest thing isn't the monster in the hallway—it's the feeling that you’ve been here before, and you’re just happy to be back.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Green Herbs.
Did you prefer the action-heavy Anderson films or the horror-focused reboot? Let me know in the comments below!
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City Witness the beginning of evil.
Once the booming home of pharmaceutical giant Umbrella Corp, Raccoon City is now a dying Midwestern town. Beneath the surface, something terrifying has been brewing. When that evil is unleashed, a group of survivors must work together to uncover the dark truth behind Umbrella and make it through the night. Survival is their only mission.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is a 2021 survival horror film that serves as a reboot of the live-action franchise. Unlike the previous films starring Milla Jovovich, this installment aims for a more faithful adaptation by directly utilizing the plot and characters from the first two Capcom video games. Core Premise & Plot September 1998
, the story follows a group of survivors in the decaying Midwestern town of Raccoon City, which has become a wasteland after the pharmaceutical giant Umbrella Corporation relocated its operations. The Mansion Incident:
Members of the STARS Alpha Team (Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Albert Wesker) are dispatched to the remote Spencer Mansion to investigate the disappearance of the Bravo Team. The RPD Siege:
Simultaneously, rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield (who returned to find her brother Chris) attempt to survive an all-out zombie outbreak at the Raccoon City Police Department The Antagonist:
The group uncovers the truth behind Umbrella's illegal experiments led by Dr. William Birkin
, who eventually mutates into a monstrous threat after injecting himself with the G-Virus. Main Cast & Characters
The film features an ensemble cast portraying iconic characters from the games: Claire Redfield: Kaya Scodelario Chris Redfield: Robbie Amell Jill Valentine: Hannah John-Kamen Leon S. Kennedy: Avan Jogia Albert Wesker: Tom Hopper Dr. William Birkin: Neal McDonough Production & Reception
The first thing you notice is the aesthetic. Anderson’s films were sleek, sterile, and painted in shades of blue and black. Roberts’ film is filthy. It is cold. The titular Raccoon City is not a bustling metropolis; it is a dying, impoverished company town. The streets are perpetually slick with rain. The Raccoon City Police Department (RPD) station is exactly as the game designers drew it—a converted art museum with ornate ceilings, grandfather clocks, and inexplicably placed wooden shutters. It feels lived-in, corrupt, and utterly hopeless.
Roberts masterfully leans into the "late 90s" setting. The film takes place in 1998, and it stinks of it. CRT televisions, payphones, and a soundtrack that hums with the industrial disquiet of the era create a sensory time capsule. This isn't a glossy superhero romp; it feels like a movie John Carpenter might have made if he were given a $25 million budget and a stack of PlayStation discs.
Most importantly, the horror is horizontal. The zombies in this film are not runners; they are the slow, shambling, Romero-esque terrors of the original game. A single zombie chewing on a corpse in a dark hallway poses a genuine threat. The film understands that tension is derived from lack of ammo, not abundance. When Claire Redfield scavenges for handgun clips, you feel the desperation.
For years, the live-action Resident Evil franchise was synonymous with one thing: Paul W.S. Anderson’s Alice. While those films were massively successful (grossing over $1.2 billion), they were less about survival horror and more about super-powered slow-motion martial arts against a laser-filled hallway.
Then, in 2021, director Johannes Roberts threw us back into the grime, the rain, and the genuine terror of Spencer Mansion with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. Love it or hate it, this film is the most faithful—and arguably the most misunderstood—adaptation of the first two games to date. Let’s break down why this film works as a love letter to the classics, where it stumbles, and why it deserves a second look.