Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)
The film is set in 1998 in the dying Midwestern town of Raccoon City, once home to the Umbrella Corporation. When a deadly outbreak erupts, Claire and Chris Redfield, along with a small group of survivors and police officers, must uncover the truth behind Umbrella and escape the zombie-infested city. The story draws on the first and second Resident Evil games and centers on the Spencer Mansion mystery.
Narrative Score
Full Plot & Ending Explained
Intro
In 1998, Claire Redfield returns to Raccoon City after years away, convinced that Umbrella Corporation has poisoned the town’s water and caused strange outbreaks, while her brother Chris serves in the Raccoon City Police Department and dismisses her warnings at first.
Turning Point 1
Claire tries to warn Chris using information from journalist Ben Bertolucci, but the warning is interrupted by a visibly infected child and then a violent domestic outbreak, showing that the city’s residents are already being transformed by the contamination.
Turning Point 2
At the police station, Chief Brian Irons sends S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team — Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Albert Wesker, Richard Aiken, and Brad Vickers — to the Spencer Mansion after Bravo Team disappears, and once inside they discover zombies, the remains of Bravo Team, and evidence that the mansion is hiding Umbrella’s experiments.
Turning Point 3
Wesker secretly pursues his own mission to steal William Birkin’s virus, but the mansion mission collapses when zombies attack, Brad is bitten, the helicopter crashes, Richard is killed, and Chris and Jill are forced into underground passages beneath the estate while Wesker’s betrayal begins to surface.
Turning Point 4
Meanwhile, Leon S. Kennedy, on his first day as a rookie officer, is mocked at the station and then drawn into the crisis when Claire reaches out to him; together they escape the streets, confront more infected civilians, and eventually make their way back toward the police station, where they find Ben Bertolucci imprisoned.
Turning Point 5
Claire and Leon uncover Umbrella’s secret underground laboratory beneath the city, where children were used in experiments and Lisa Trevor, the disfigured girl Claire once befriended in the orphanage, reappears as a tragic but helpful guide; Brian Irons also tries to flee the city, but Umbrella guards fire on him and force him back.
Turning Point 6
Inside the lab, the survivors reunite with Chris and Jill, and they learn that William Birkin has injected himself with the G-Virus after a violent confrontation; Birkin mutates further, the group fights through the facility toward an underground train station, and Wesker is caught in the chaos as the city’s destruction deadline closes in.
Ending
Leon kills the final monstrous form of William Birkin with a rocket launcher just before the underground train escapes, and the surviving group leaves Raccoon City moments before the city is destroyed in a massive explosion that swallows the town, while the broader outbreak continues to spread beyond the city.
Cross-checked against Wikipedia and other public film references. View on Letterboxd ↗ The Narrative Score above is an experimental 5-axis rating, not a critic score.