“My name is Alice. I worked for the Umbrella Corporation.”
I spent most of my free time this week watching (many for the first time) the first five films in the Resident Evil franchise, of course in preparation for Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, and I’ve come out the other end with a few observations. 1) Extinction, with its Mad Max vibe and insane levels of gore, is the best film in the entire series. 2) Even the franchise’s best isn’t exactly a great movie, but each of the films is entertaining in its own way. 3) Michelle Rodriguez really should’ve fought other Michelle Rodriguez in that fifth one. And 4) Milla Jovovich is a total badass.
Many fans of the Resident Evil video games don’t exactly dig how much the films deviate from the storylines and overall tone of those games, but what’s interesting is that the best thing about the film franchise is a character who wasn’t present in the games: Jovovich’s Alice. Sure, it would’ve been cool to see the games spawn a full-on horror franchise that was actually suspenseful and terrifying, but Jovovich is so much fun as Alice that I sure wouldn’t wish this franchise out of existence in favor of a different one. It was inspired casting, and she proved to be the perfect fit.
The Resident Evil films, more than anything else, are about allowing Jovovich and other super cool actresses to be badass and, in the process, show that women are just as fit to be action heroes as men. Throughout the series, Alice in particular has so many badass moments that narrowing them down to only five is a challenge, but it’s a challenge I was willing to both give to myself and accept from myself. Rather than highlighting several moments from some films and leaving others in the dust, I decided to spotlight the most badass Alice moment from each of the five films.
Let’s begin!
1) RESIDENT EVIL – DOG FIGHT
One of the most iconic scenes from the film franchise is iconic for a reason. In Resident Evil, Alice finds herself battling the undead down in The Hive, but she encounters a new threat when she comes face-to-face with a pack of nasty, T-virus infected dogs. At this point in the film, Alice is just rediscovering how much ass she’s capable of kicking, and when one of the zombie dogs charges after her, she does (literally) just that. Surprising even herself, Alice runs up a wall and delivers a spin kick to the dog’s face, killing it instantly. With her foot. You’re so cool, Alice.
2) RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE – MOTORCYCLE MASSACRE
Apocalypse is my least favorite film in the series, but its not without its awesome moments of Jovovichsploitation (yeah I totally just coined that and you’re free to use it at your discretion). In nearly all of the films, Alice has a habit of showing up at just the right time and eliminating a threat nobody else is able to, and she does precisely that in the first sequel when she rides a motorcycle straight through a stained glass window and into a Licker-infested church. She kills every Licker in the church with ease, using the motorcycle as a makeshift explosive device to dispatch one and the church’s cross to pin another to the ground; with the Licker trapped, she calmly and coolly blows its head off with a shotgun. She’s done this before, in case you couldn’t tell.
3) RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION – IT’S RAINING BIRDS
One of the reasons Extinction is my favorite installment is because it’s the one where Alice becomes a full-blown superhero. Granted, she always kinda had superhuman strengths, but in Extinction we see the full power of the telekinetic abilities she has obtained. In the film’s standout sequence, which plays out like a gory tribute to Hitchcock’s The Birds, literal hundreds of infected crows attack Claire Redfield’s post-apocalypse convoy, and as always, Alice shows up in the nick of time to save their asses. She uses her powers to create a mental flamethrower that fills the sky with fire and obliterates the crows in one fell swoop. The image of hundreds of birds falling from the fiery sky, with Alice standing tall amid the chaos, is maybe the franchise’s coolest.
4) RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE – ZOMBIE LEMMINGS
In many ways, the franchise fully embraced the dumbness of it all beginning with Afterlife, which put Paul W.S. Anderson in the director’s chair for the first time since the first film. Kicking off with multiple versions of Alice laying waste to countless Umbrella Corporation employees, Afterlife is the very definition of Jovovichsploitation, and whatever it lacks in story it totally makes up for in over-the-top ridiculous entertainment. The fourth installment marks the first appearance of Axeman, who is dispatched by Alice and Claire in an incredibly fun sequence. But my favorite moment in Afterlife is all about Alice. Putting her life on the line to save her friends from a horde of zombies, Alice jumps off the roof of the prison with a cable attached to herself, and as she hoped, the zombies follow suit like the mindless lemmings that they are. The franchise is at its best when it’s just having fun, and it doesn’t get much more fun than this madness.
5) RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION – ALICE GOES OLDBOY
To be completely honest, I wasn’t originally planning on watching the Resident Evil films in advance of The Final Chapter, and that’s because I wasn’t planning on even seeing The Final Chapter in theaters. Up to this week, I had only seen the first one (many years ago), and I just wasn’t interested in giving the others a shot. But then I caught some of Retribution on TV, and I had so much fun with it that I decided to binge the whole damn series. In particular, it was the above fight sequence that won me over. In a long white corridor, Alice goes on a zombie-killing spree, using her hands, feet, a chain and a gun to effortlessly destroy the competition. It plays out like the franchise’s answer to the hallway fight from Oldboy, and it’s wonderfully shot and choreographed.
Who’s ready for more ass-kicking awesomeness in Resident Evil: The Final Chapter? I sure am!
