For more than two decades, Resident Evil has been one of gaming’s most recognizable horror franchises, combining survival horror, grotesque biological mutations and corporate conspiracy into a world that has terrified players across multiple generations. Yet the film adaptations starring Milla Jovovich gradually developed into action spectacles that bore increasingly little resemblance to the source material. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City attempts to correct that course, drawing directly from the first two games and recreating familiar locations, storylines and creatures. Writer-director Johannes Roberts clearly understands the appeal of returning to the franchise’s survival horror roots, and fans will recognize plenty of familiar details. Unfortunately, the film is so preoccupied with incorporating recognizable material that it rarely gives those elements the time needed to work as horror.
Corporate corruption and institutional decay provide the foundation for the film’s vision of Raccoon City. The town’s biological catastrophe is not simply an isolated scientific accident but the culmination of years of exploitation by Umbrella Corporation, the pharmaceutical giant that once served as the community’s economic lifeline. When Umbrella withdraws, it leaves behind a dying town whose residents have been abandoned alongside the infrastructure that sustained them. The corporation’s departure exposes a system that was never designed to protect the community, only to extract value from it. By the time the outbreak begins, Raccoon City is already a place defined by neglect, institutional distrust and the consequences of allowing a powerful company to operate without meaningful accountability. The film establishes a compelling backdrop, even if its limited runtime prevents the setting from becoming as oppressive or lived-in as it should.
The characters’ childhood trauma reinforces the idea that the horrors of Raccoon City began long before the outbreak. Claire Redfield returns to a place associated with disturbing memories and a childhood she has spent trying to escape, while her brother Chris has embraced a career within the very institution Claire distrusts. Chris’s position as a police officer gives him a degree of faith in the system, but his loyalty also makes him slower to recognize its failures. Claire, by contrast, has spent years questioning the people and organizations that Chris accepts. Their differing perspectives create a potentially compelling family conflict, although the screenplay seldom gives it enough room to develop. Lisa Trevor offers an even more horrifying example of the past’s lasting consequences, representing the human cost of Umbrella’s experiments. Her transformation into a victim of grotesque scientific abuse gives the film one of its most disturbing connections to the games, even as her story is reduced to a relatively brief thread.
The film’s greatest structural problem is its attempt to combine the narratives of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 into a single feature. Both games establish distinct survival horror experiences, with the Spencer mansion emphasizing isolation, exploration and the gradual discovery of Umbrella’s secrets, while the Raccoon City Police Department becomes a desperate refuge during a citywide collapse. Welcome to Raccoon City rushes between these locations and storylines, sacrificing the atmosphere that makes each setting memorable. The Spencer mansion never becomes the labyrinth of dread it should be, and the police station lacks the sustained siege mentality that gives the second game its identity. Characters move between threats before the film has adequately established the danger of their surroundings. Rather than building suspense through scarcity, uncertainty and escalating terror, the movie frequently treats its locations as recognizable backdrops for the next sequence of events.
That compression also comes at the expense of the franchise’s iconic characters. Leon S. Kennedy, one of the games’ most capable and endearing protagonists, is reimagined as a bumbling, insecure rookie who struggles to command basic respect. There is room for a less experienced Leon to make mistakes, but this version lacks the competence and determination that make his evolution compelling. Albert Wesker suffers an equally significant transformation. Instead of the calculating, impeccably composed mastermind familiar to players, he is presented as a comparatively sympathetic police officer whose ambitions and duplicity receive little meaningful development. The film seems more interested in referencing these characters than understanding what makes them memorable. Chris and Claire Redfield, along with Jill Valentine, receive limited characterization beyond their immediate roles in the outbreak, while early dialogue often feels designed to establish Easter eggs rather than reveal personality. By the time the action takes over, the characters have not developed enough to make their survival particularly affecting.
The visual effects have also attracted criticism, and the uneven CGI occasionally undermines the film’s atmosphere. Some of the creatures and environments evoke the aesthetic of the franchise’s earlier games, making the artificiality feel like a deliberate homage rather than simply a technical failure. There is a certain appeal to seeing the series’ grotesque monsters recreated with the exaggerated appearance of its late-1990s origins. Nevertheless, nostalgia can only excuse so much. The effects sometimes lack the physical weight necessary to make the creatures threatening, and the artificial imagery can undermine the sense that Raccoon City is a tangible place collapsing under an unimaginable disaster. An intentional stylistic choice can still be ineffective, particularly in a horror film that depends on convincing its audience that the danger is immediate.
The cast is generally serviceable, but nobody manages to elevate the material substantially. Kaya Scodelario gives Claire an appropriate combination of defiance and vulnerability, while Robbie Amell brings physical presence to Chris. Hannah John-Kamen makes an impression as Jill Valentine, although the screenplay does little to distinguish her beyond her role within the ensemble. Avan Jogia’s Leon is the most conspicuous miscalculation, largely because the writing leaves him without a satisfying arc that could justify this radical reinterpretation. The performances are not uniformly poor, and the actors appear committed to the material, but the thin characterization limits what they can accomplish. Without stronger emotional foundations, even familiar characters and recognizable creatures struggle to generate much investment.
Adapting a video game presents challenges that go beyond translating its plot to another medium. Games communicate through player agency, exploration, environmental storytelling and the tension of making decisions under pressure. A film cannot simply reproduce those experiences by recreating locations and inserting familiar dialogue. It must build its own dramatic momentum while preserving the elements that made the source material distinctive. Welcome to Raccoon City understands the importance of fidelity after the previous film franchise drifted so far from the games, but it overcorrects by prioritizing references and plot points over atmosphere and character development. Its greatest strength is also its greatest limitation: the filmmakers know what fans want to see, yet they struggle to turn those recognizable elements into a compelling cinematic experience.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is a frustrating adaptation that gets closer to the games while failing to capture much of what makes them effective. Its attention to familiar settings, creatures and storylines makes it a more faithful interpretation than the original Milla Jovovich films, and its themes of corporate exploitation and institutional failure provide a worthwhile foundation. However, the overcrowded narrative, underdeveloped characters and inconsistent effects prevent it from delivering the sustained dread its material demands. Roberts appears so focused on honoring the source material that he neglects the storytelling discipline required to make the film work independently. The result is a movie with enough fan service to reward recognition but too little atmosphere or character depth to stand confidently on its own.