Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

Finally got around to this; watching bits and pieces at least but enough to know the full plot, and... It was about as bad as I expected if not worse. Where to begin...

I know it was meshing the RE1 and RE2 stories together, but not having some of the characters from either still hurt. No Barry for one. Donal Logue (known for Bullock in Gotham and such) who played Chief Irons here honestly could've been cast as Barry and that would've worked better for this film. Also missing Mr X from the RE2 half, and why are the Hunters never put in these live action movies? Always the Lickers, which wasn't executed here as well as in the Anderson movies either, nor were the effects as good. Mutated Birkin was underwhelming and really rushed too. Even Paul Anderson's Nemesis had more screen time.

Jill being an angry shoot first ask questions later type made her pretty unlikable here. Claire's also an angry nut. And this Leon, or Leon Stupid Kennedy as he was referred to got his job because of nepotism. 😂 Chris and Claire being orphans from that orphanage in the RE2make is also kinda weird. Same with Lisa Trevor being from there instead of the Arklay Mansion and being friends with Claire.

Wesker's neither the STARS captain in this or has any connection to Umbrella. Not even a bad guy, just a mercenary who accepted a side mission for money to expose an evil company. It makes no sense for Jill to even demonize this version of Wesker with that said or let alone shoot him in the back. Ada being shoehorned at the end to "resurrect" Wesker and give him his sunglasses felt out of character too.

Like with Mortal Kombat 2021, the little on paper and set piece references are cute, but you'd appreciate them more if they were in a better movie. It's focusing on the small details instead of the big picture. Plus the Code Veronica reference with the Ashford twins was out of place here.

It shouldn't be that hard to adapt Resident Evil into a really good movie, but based on the results we've kept getting, it's one of the hardest things in the universe.

Between the displacement of Lisa Trevor and the Ashford kids' old film reel of all things playing at some point, it's like a TV ad commercial compiling bits from Resident Evil's past maybe to promote a bad mobile game but somebody barged in the room and was like "you know what'd be better? Turning it into a movie!"

So much bad that came outta this. Like the references they shoehorn and ruin into complete annihilation. Instead of using the iconic zombie head turn from RE1 as the introduction to our undead, they save it halfway into the film after zombies have already attacked people and invaded the RPD. There's also another reference, the itchy tasty quote found among the first game's collectibles where in the movie a zombie woman not only writes it but screams it over & over in our protagonist's face. Was that seriously meant to be scary? Good grief.

I could like a Resident Evil alternate universe with a morally good Wesker but his actor suuuuucks as equally as Jill's IQ shooting his ass. It was Irons who told their team to go to Arklay, why other than to play a damn parody on the original did she automatically make Wesker out as prime suspect?

I'll give WRC this: Other than being where she shouldn't, didn't find anything to dislike about Lisa Trevor. Certainly treated her with more decency here than Paul Anderson did for Nemesis in Apocalypse. But in a turnaround he didn't look as bad compared to Birkin's mutated forms and my goodness, what potential this actor had but someone decided his character would get shot & turned from around the beginning. Lame!