Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)

The film is a reasonably entertaining, unpretentiously gory horror exercise set in the late 1990s in Raccoon City. It suffers from an excess of characters drawn from older Resident Evil lore but features competent action sequences and nostalgic 90s tech callbacks.

The critic finds this 1990s-set reboot lacklustre, with a story merging the first two games that fails to mesh its disparate threads. The script relies on clichés and identikit characters, while the film offers samey action, autopilot performances and a lack of decent scares or thrills.

The film starts with some promising cheeky humor and mounting dread in its first hour but devolves into incoherent sludge in the second half, failing to replace the cool aesthetics and action of prior adaptations or meaningfully engage with corporate malfeasance themes.

Roberts’s origin tale excuses the absence of Milla Jovovich and embraces ’90s nostalgia with kitschy details like beepers. It sets up the zombie apocalypse in Raccoon City but remains familiar lore to fans without much new to offer beyond the setting.

The film captures the games' spirit through faithful recreations of locations and characters but fails to deliver cinematic thrills. Lazy scripting, thin scares and poor CG effects are singled out as major drawbacks.

The film is the most directly inspired by the games yet, with familiar characters, locations, and practical effects that evoke the survival-horror tone. However, choppy action, clunky storytelling, poor geography in scenes, and a lack of tension make it predictable fan service rather than a dread-inducing experience.

The reboot is brain-dead and fails to replicate the fear or imaginative gore of the games, with thin characters and no real sense of place despite nostalgic ’90s references. It makes one long for the earlier films’ capable horror-action direction despite their flaws.

The reboot supplies fan service and faithful touches from the first two games but has scarce coherent plotting, fewer scares, chintzy CGI, and superficial authenticity that cannot compensate for absent tension or one-dimensional characters. Subpar effects, helter-skelter editing, and a blaring score mark it as a disappointing contemporary B-movie.

The reboot is a solid addition and upgrade on the previous films in the series, with energy, mood and pace that make the first hour fly by. It takes the franchise back to its roots effectively but feels like a standard studio picture in the final act and leaves plenty of room for improvement.

The film succeeds on its own modest terms as an old-school horror flick, delivering eeriness and sufficient scares in a rundown Raccoon City setting. The director creates a suitably atmospheric and predictable but effective zombie thriller, elevated by Scodelario's performance.

The film returns the series to its horror roots with moody textures and skillful B-movie style, but it is not particularly scary and feels diffuse with underdeveloped characters.

The reboot improves on prior entries with more efficient storytelling, better tension and character development, plus a solid cast led by capable female characters. It falters with a meandering middle section full of unnecessary exposition, disjointed pacing and unconvincing special effects.

The movie is very faithful to the games with accurate locations, characters and moments, but this loyalty causes it to lack bite, terror and tension. It feels overstuffed yet undercooked, with no notable scares or memorable set pieces, making it less engaging than prior entries.

The reboot wisely leans into horror and direct references from the games rather than action, but it ultimately feels undercooked and dull with little story holding the game elements together. It is a pointless exercise that fails to deliver on its potential.