Remember everything I said about Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) about it being a lie if you thought it was the last entry in the franchise? Well, if Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021) is any indication, then that turned out to be true and not true. When it comes to such conundrums, I like them best when it comes to my Faith. Catholicism is full of aspects that are “both/and.” Jesus was God and Man. We believe in the Holy Trinity, which is three distinct Persons, and yet all are One. These are complex ideas, but what is going on with Resident Evil movies is considerably simpler: it is a reboot. I have no idea if the Resident Evil film to come out later this year is meant to be part of this latest effort, but for now, we have Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City.

This new iteration of Resident Evil begins decades earlier at the Raccoon City Orphanage, where young Claire Redfield (Lily Gail Reid) and her older brother Chris Redfield (Daxton Gujral) live after the deaths of their parents. Claire discovers Lisa Trevor (Marina Mazepa), a horribly disfigured girl who has been subjected to experiments by Umbrella Corporation scientist Dr. William Birkin (Neal McDonough). When Dr. Birkin selects Claire for experimentation, she escapes the orphanage and eventually leaves Raccoon City. Fast-forwarding to 1998, the adult Claire (Kaya Scodelario) returns by hitching a ride with a truck driver. He strikes a woman standing in the road, but her body mysteriously disappears, while his Dobermann licks her blood and soon becomes infected. Claire reaches the home of her estranged brother Chris (Robbie Amell), now a police officer, and warns him that Umbrella has poisoned the city’s water. Her information comes from conspiracy-minded journalist Ben Bertolucci (Josh Cruddas), but Chris dismisses her claims and leaves for work. It does not take long for Claire to find evidence that perhaps the conspiracy theorist deserves to be believed, as an infected boy and his mother invade the house. At the police station, Chief Brian Irons (Donal Logue) sends members of the elite Special Tactics and Rescue Service (STARS) Alpha Team to investigate the disappearance of officers near the remote Spencer Mansion. Chris joins Jill Valentine (Hannah John-Kamen), Albert Wesker (Tom Hopper), Richard Aiken (Chad Rook), and helicopter pilot Brad Vickers (Nathan Dales). Unknown to the others, Albert has received instructions from a mysterious employer to retrieve Umbrella research before Raccoon City is destroyed at 6:00 a.m. The team finds the missing officers’ vehicle and follows a trail of blood to Spencer Mansion, where the group encounters zombies. Brad is bitten and crashes the helicopter into the mansion, Richard is killed, and Chris finds himself fighting through rooms filled with the undead. Albert and Jill discover a secret passage after Albert uses instructions on his personal digital assistant (PDA) to play the correct notes on a piano. Albert admits that he has been hired to steal Dr. Birkin’s research, though he claims he did not understand the full horror of Umbrella’s activities. Back in Raccoon City, the infected truck driver crashes into the police station. Chief Irons attempts to flee town but discovers Umbrella forces sealing the exits and shooting anyone who approaches. He returns to the station, where Claire saves him from an infected dog and joins rookie officer Leon S. Kennedy (Avan Jogia), whose first night on the job has become considerably more educational than the police academy probably intended. As they are figuring out their next move, Leon and Claire find Ben locked in a cell. Ben takes Leon’s gun while explaining Umbrella’s crimes, but an infected prisoner kills him before he can escape. Chief Irons leads Claire and Leon to the abandoned orphanage, where he knows of a secret route toward the mansion. A monstrous Licker kills Chief Irons and nearly gets Leon, only for Lisa to appear and destroy the creature. Recognizing Claire, Lisa gives her the keys to a hidden passage leading underground. Claire and Leon enter Umbrella’s laboratory and discover records showing that children from the orphanage were used as test subjects for the company’s experiments. Whatever else Umbrella may call its research, treating children as disposable material is an especially grotesque denial of the dignity belonging to every human person. Meanwhile, Albert reaches Dr. Birkin, who is preparing to flee with his wife Annette Birkin (Janet Porter) and daughter Sherry Birkin (Holly de Barros). Dr. Birkin shoots Albert, who returns fire and wounds him before killing Annette. When Albert hesitates to shoot Sherry, Jill arrives and shoots Albert instead. Before apparently dying, Albert warns Jill that Umbrella will destroy Raccoon City at 6:00 a.m. Dr. Birkin, unwilling to die, injects himself with the G-virus and mutates into an increasingly monstrous creature. Chris and Jill try to protect Sherry, while Claire and Leon arrive through the underground complex. Claire shoots the mutated Dr. Birkin before Chris finishes him, and the siblings finally reconcile after years of estrangement. Chris, Claire, Jill, Leon, and Sherry board an underground train and escape moments before Umbrella destroys Raccoon City, Spencer Mansion, and its laboratories, conveniently eliminating both the outbreak and a considerable amount of evidence. Unfortunately, Dr. Birkin proves difficult to kill even by franchise standards. Now transformed into an enormous mass of flesh and eyes, he attacks the train until Leon appears with a rocket launcher and destroys him. The five survivors emerge from the tunnel as Umbrella publicly reports that nobody survived the catastrophe. Even in a reboot, apparently, this corporation remains committed to lying almost as enthusiastically as it is to conducting biological experimentation. A mid-credits scene supplies the obligatory reminder that nothing in Resident Evil stays finished for long: Albert awakens inside a body bag, alive but unable to see. A mysterious woman gives him sunglasses and identifies herself as Ada Wong (Lily Gao), leaving yet another door open for a sequel that, as of this film, never arrived.

The fact that Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City leaves it open for another film is in keeping with the modus operandi for the franchise. It also has the usual time spent in subterranean settings since the Umbrella Corporation seems incapable of doing anything above ground. Finally, my usual Catholic discussion of these films concerns the dangers of these biological experiments in terms of the people conducting them playing God. In this one, we get a more direct reference to this folly. When Dr. Birkin is trying to flee with his family, he takes them to his secret lab, intending to take his diabolical viruses with him before he evacuates. This move is not what I would call dad-of-the-year behavior, Christian or otherwise. The setting that greets Annette and Sherry there features an eviscerated human body, cut open as if undergoing an autopsy with several organs removed, and yet still reaching out and talking. The only real word for this is traumatizing, particularly for Sherry, and Dr. Birkin’s response when they ask what he is doing there is “God’s work.” The simple answer to this is no. There is no scenario in which experimenting on humans in this manner is something God would want of anyone. This is also something that has been said a couple of times when talking about these movies, including in the above synopsis. Umbrella believes it is doing this work in order to improve the lives of people. However, such goals should never be pursued at the expense of human dignity.

Speaking of “dignity,” I think what the makers of Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City were going for was a less goofy cinematic take on the video game franchise. The Milla Jovovich films in this series got progressively sillier. That does not mean this is any better, but at least I am done with these films for now.