I finally watched Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, and honestly, I can
see why people have mixed feelings about it.

A friend from work had recommended it to me, but not exactly in the most glowing
way. It was more like, “It is not great, but it is more faithful to the games
than the other movies.”

That is a strange kind of recommendation, but with Resident Evil, I understood
what he meant.

The older Resident Evil movies became their own thing pretty quickly. They used
names, ideas, creatures, and pieces from the games, but they were never really
trying to be a straight adaptation. They were Resident Evil in branding, but
they often felt like action movies wearing a Resident Evil jacket.

Welcome to Raccoon City is different.

You can tell it wants to be closer to the games.

You can see the mansion.

You can see the Raccoon City Police Department.

You can see characters, locations, shots, and references that are clearly
trying to speak directly to fans of the original games.

And in some ways, I respect that.

The problem is that being more faithful in pieces does not automatically make
the whole thing work.

The George Romero Connection Put Me in the Mood

Part of why I even wanted to watch this movie now is because I had been digging
a little more into the George Romero side of Resident Evil.

That is one of those “what could have been” pieces of gaming and movie history
that still feels fascinating.

Romero made sense for Resident Evil.

On paper, that sounds like the perfect match. Resident Evil was already heavily
influenced by zombie films, and Romero was one of the biggest names connected
to that genre. He even directed a commercial for Resident Evil 2, which only
makes the whole thing more interesting.

The idea that he could have directed a Resident Evil movie feels like something
from an alternate timeline.

Would it have been perfect?

Who knows.

Sometimes the version that never happened becomes better in our heads because
we never had to see the flaws. But it is still hard not to wonder what that
movie would have looked like.

After watching a documentary about that whole situation, I was in the mood to
revisit Resident Evil as a movie adaptation.

That is what led me to Welcome to Raccoon City.

I Did Not Hate the Movie

The funny thing is, I did not hate it.

I know that is not exactly high praise, but it is true.

There were parts that bored me a little. There were parts where the pacing felt
off. There were character choices that did not work for me. There were moments
where I could see what the movie wanted to do, but the execution was not strong
enough to pull it off.

But I still watched the whole thing.

That says something.

There are movies where I check out early and never feel the need to finish.
This was not one of those. Even when I thought it was messy, I still wanted to
see where it was going.

That is probably because the movie does have the pieces.

It has enough Resident Evil DNA that I could stay interested. I could recognize
the locations. I could see the game influence. I could tell that someone wanted
this to feel more like the source material than the previous movie series.

That matters.

But it also made the problems more frustrating.

Because the movie was not missing everything.

It was just trying to carry too much.

The Biggest Problem Is That It Tried to Do Too Much

For me, the biggest issue with Welcome to Raccoon City is that it tries to
combine too much at once.

Instead of focusing mostly on the first Resident Evil game and building the
movie around the mansion incident, it also tries to pull in a lot from Resident
Evil 2.

That is where the movie starts to feel crowded.

The first Resident Evil game already has enough for a movie.

• You have the S.T.A.R.S. team.
• You have the mansion.
• You have the mystery of what happened.
• You have Umbrella.
• You have zombies.
• You have monsters.
• You have betrayal.
• You have survival horror.

That is plenty.

A simple mansion-focused horror movie could have worked. Keep the cast tighter.
Let the atmosphere breathe. Build the tension. Treat the mansion almost like a
character itself.

Instead, the movie splits its attention.

Now we have the mansion side and the Raccoon City Police Department side. We
have characters from different games sharing space. We have storylines that
should probably have had their own movies being compressed into one.

That is a lot to ask from a single film.

Especially one that is not very long.

Resident Evil Needed Simplicity

I think Resident Evil works best when the setup is simple.

That is one of the strengths of the original game.

A team investigates a strange situation. They end up trapped in a mansion. The
mansion is filled with secrets, monsters, locked doors, puzzles, and slowly
unfolding horror.

That is a strong movie premise by itself.

You do not need to overcomplicate it.

In fact, I think the more you add, the more you risk weakening what makes it
work.

Survival horror needs space.

It needs quiet.

It needs tension.

It needs that feeling that every hallway could be dangerous.

If the story keeps jumping around too much, that atmosphere gets harder to
build.

Welcome to Raccoon City has horror elements, but I do not think it fully lets
them settle. It moves from one thing to the next too quickly because it has so
much ground to cover.

That is where a more focused adaptation could have been stronger.

The Cast Feels Too Crowded

Another issue is the cast.

Resident Evil has a lot of well-known characters, and I understand why the
movie wanted to include so many of them.

Fans know these names.

• Chris.
• Claire.
• Jill.
• Leon.
• Wesker.
• Birkin.
• Chief Irons.

The problem is that including a character is not the same as using them well.

When too many characters are fighting for attention, some of them are going to
feel thin. They might have the name, the costume, or the general role, but they
do not always feel like they have enough time to matter.

That is especially risky with game characters because fans already have a
version of these people in their heads.

If the movie changes them, there needs to be a good reason.

If the movie includes them, they need enough room to feel important.

If the movie does neither, then they can start to feel like references instead
of characters.

That was part of the problem here.

The movie had familiar faces, but not always enough depth.

Faithful References Are Not Enough

This is where adaptations can get tricky.

Fans often say they want something faithful.

And I get that.

When you love a game, comic, show, or book, you want the adaptation to respect
it. You want the people making it to understand what made the original work.

But faithfulness is not just about including recognizable things.

It is not just about recreating a shot.

It is not just about having the right location.

It is not just about naming a character after someone from the game.

Those things can help, but they are not the whole job.

The adaptation still has to work as a movie.

It needs structure.

It needs pacing.

It needs character development.

It needs focus.

It needs to know what story it is actually telling.

Welcome to Raccoon City feels like it wanted fans to point at the screen and
say, “I know that.”

And sometimes I did.

But recognition is not the same as satisfaction.

The Mansion Should Have Been the Movie

If I were looking at this from the outside, I think the better move would have
been to make the first movie about the mansion.

Keep it simple.

Make it atmospheric.

Make it creepy.

Let the characters explore.

Let the horror build slowly.

Let Umbrella be the shadow over everything without trying to explain too much
too quickly.

Then, if that worked, the sequel could have gone into Raccoon City and the
events closer to Resident Evil 2.

That would have given both stories room to breathe.

The first movie could have been survival horror in a mansion.

The second movie could have been the city falling apart.

That feels like a natural progression.

Instead, Welcome to Raccoon City tries to speedrun both ideas.

That is probably why it feels like it has the ingredients, but not the full
meal.

And yes, I know that is a very old man complaint.

But sometimes the old man is right.

I Understand What They Were Trying to Do

To be fair, I do understand the logic.

Resident Evil 2 is extremely popular. Raccoon City is iconic. Leon and Claire
are major characters. The police station is one of the most recognizable
locations in the series.

From a marketing standpoint, I can see why they did not want to only do the
mansion.

They probably wanted more recognizable material.

They probably wanted the movie to feel bigger.

They probably wanted to bring in more fan favorites right away.

I get it.

But bigger is not always better.

Sometimes the smarter move is to earn the bigger story.

Start small.

Build the world.

Let the audience care.

Then expand.

That is especially true with horror. If you start too big, you can lose the
intimacy that makes the horror work.

Resident Evil did not need to be massive right away.

It needed to be tense.

It Still Has Some Value as a Fan Watch

Even with all my complaints, I do think there is some value in watching it as a
Resident Evil fan.

It is interesting.

Maybe not great, but interesting.

It is interesting because you can see the attempt. You can see where the movie
wanted to correct course from the older films. You can see the desire to pull
more directly from the games.

That alone makes it worth talking about.

I would rather watch a flawed movie that is trying to adapt the source material
than a movie that feels embarrassed by it.

Welcome to Raccoon City does not feel embarrassed by Resident Evil.

That is a good thing.

It just feels like it did not trust one story enough to carry the movie.

And I think that is where it lost me.

Adaptations Need More Than Good Intentions

This is something that applies to a lot of adaptations.

Good intentions are not enough.

Being a fan is not enough.

Adding references is not enough.

You still have to make the story work for the format you are using.

Games and movies are different.

A game can let you explore slowly. It can let you backtrack, solve puzzles,
manage inventory, read files, and feel tension through gameplay. A movie has to
translate that into scenes, pacing, mood, and character.

That is not easy.

Resident Evil is especially hard because so much of the original experience is
about control.

You are the one opening the door.

You are the one deciding whether to use ammo.

You are the one walking down the hallway.

You are the one hearing something around the corner.

A movie cannot copy that directly.

It has to find a different way to create the same feeling.

Welcome to Raccoon City gets some of the imagery right, but I do not think it
fully captures that feeling.

Final Thoughts

I do not think Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is a complete disaster.

I have seen worse adaptations.

I have seen movies that cared less.

This one at least feels like it wanted to be Resident Evil in a more direct way.

But wanting to be faithful and actually making a strong movie are two different
things.

For me, the movie had the pieces.

It had the mansion.

It had Raccoon City.

It had familiar characters.

It had references fans would notice.

It had enough of the game identity to keep me watching.

But it did not have enough focus.

That is the frustrating part.

A simpler movie based mostly around the first Resident Evil game could have
been stronger. Give me the mansion. Give me the mystery. Give me the slow build.
Give me a tighter cast. Let the horror breathe.

Then save Raccoon City for later.

Sometimes the best adaptation is not the one that tries to include everything.

Sometimes it is the one that knows what to leave out.