THE DEAD TIMES

RATING:

ZOMBIE RATING:

DESCRIPTION:

Set in 1998, this movie explores the shady underbelly of the Umbrella corporation that has established itself in Raccoon City as seen in the Resident Evil video games. When an outbreak occurs, as Umbrella closes down to move location, the city's inhabitants are changed from peaceful townsfolk to flesh-hungry horrors. A police team and other characters caught up in the bizarre incident, race to safety before the entire area is destroyed in an attempt to contain what was unleashed.

MY VERDICT:

Overall, this is a poor movie that definitely fails to hit the high-mark set by its source material though it does have segments of beauty; single scenes of 'coolness' that are simply underdeveloped or passed over in the blink of an eye. The first most prominent highlight, which is one of the only things the film manages to do well for the entire runtime, is convince you that it is set in the late 1990s. The outfits of characters, the unnervingly plain announcement font, the sets, the typewriters and palmpilots - they all scream nineties. Then there are the settings that are known to fans of the Resident Evil franchise such as the Raccoon City police department, the Spencer mansion and the infamous nineties-styled diner. They are all lovingly recreated in the live-action movie with exquisite detail - it's a shame that some of the best bits are computer generated imagery plastered over green-screens and not physical locations, but movie-budgets can only stretch so far. There are some fantastically recreated enemies in the movie as well such as the Licker (disappointingly, there is only one) and the Zombie dogs. I adore William Burkin during his first transformation with his constantly growing mutated arm, shoulder-eyeballs flicking rapidly (another excellent nod to the games). Still, these, while they may sound fantastic, are all single ideas, single moments in time that cannot make the overall viewing experience truly enjoyable and there are three catastrophic choices that doomed this film before it could find its stride. Firstly, the casting is a real issue. After you've spent so much time and budget, faithfully recreating settings from the much-loved video games, to then employ actors which, in most cases, only barely resemble the characters from that game is a questionable decision at best. The acting is mixed as well; none of it awful but also none of it really hitting the high notes. The second fatal flaw is the writing and plot of the film which aims to cover the entirety of both Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 video games in one 107 minute movie - an impossible task that sees key franchise scenes brushed over incredibly quickly. The third and final nail in the coffin, especially for me, is the Zombies, or rather what passes for them in this film. They are capable of forming words, they seem to not know whether they want to be slow-moving shamblers or fast-paced sprinters, they seem to just appear out of nowhere, they do not moan or groan and are just accepted, never questioned or thought of as something beyond the normal. Resident Evil is a franchise built upon Zombies, bringing the shuffling horrors spawned by George A. Romero to the video game world. A movie that so faithfully aims to bring that world to the big screen, should have top-quality Zombies and in the case of Welcome to Raccoon City it, yet again, fails to deliver.