User:Norgizfox5041/Alice (Resident Evil)

Alice (Resident Evil)

Alice
Resident Evil character
First appearanceResident Evil
Last appearanceResident Evil: Retribution
Created byPaul W. S. Anderson
Portrayed byMilla Jovovich

Alice, also known as "Project Alice", is the main protagonist of the Resident Evil film series. The character, portrayed by Milla Jovovich, has appeared in every film as the heroine, Resident Evil (2002), Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), and Resident Evil: Retribution (2012). The films' plot revolve around her and the struggle with the Umbrella Corporation, a bioengineering pharmaceutical company responsible for the zombie apocalypse as a result of creating the t-Virus. In later films, she turns into a vigilante, trying to take down the company for their destruction of the world. Apart from the films, she appears in the film's novelizations where her background is explained.

Alice was an original character created for the films, although writer Paul W. S. Anderson noted that Alice was based on the strong women in the Resident Evil games.

Since her introduction in the films, Alice has become an iconic figure that has become closely associated with the franchise.[1] Alice's superhuman abilities, as well as the use of various styles of martial arts and gunplay have made her something of a superhero character,[2][3] and her role in the films have served as a touchpoint for women in action films. Music channel VH1 has referred to Jovovich as the "reigning queen of kick-butt" for her role of Alice.[4] and Rebecca Flint Marx of Allmovie said that despite the negative critical response for the Resident Evil films, the franchise has turned Jovovich into an "A-list action star".[5]

Appearances

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Resident Evil

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In Resident Evil, Alice is an amnesiac who wakes in a seemingly abandoned mansion before she is apprehended by an Umbrella commando team, along with Matt Addison, and immediately dragged down into the Hive. The commando unit's leader, One, fills her in on her true identity when they reach the Hive. She and Spence were security operatives, posing as a married couple to protect The Hive's mansion entrance. Her memory loss was caused when a nerve gas was released into the house by its primary defenses which were activated by the Red Queen when the viral outbreak occurred.

Through the film Alice experiences flashbacks as her memory returns.Though working for Umbrella, it's revealed she was willing to expose Umbrella's experiments to bring the company down. After the full restoration of her memories, she tells Matt that she was trying to help his sister smuggle a sample of the t-Virus out of the Hive in order to help their cause. However, her plans were foiled by Spence Parks who had his own personal agenda to retrieve the t-Virus and sell it on the black market. After the outbreak in the underground lab, Alice and Matt Addison remain the only survivors of the incident. Upon arrival back at the mansion both are seized by Umbrella scientists and taken into quarantine at Raccoon General Hospital. Alice wakes up some time later and escapes the room she was kept in to find Raccoon City destroyed as the virus escaped.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

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During the viral outbreak in Raccoon City, Alice is released by Major Cain to combat their latest bio-weapon "Nemesis" (a mutated Matt Addison). After escaping the hospital, Alice learns she has been genetically altered by exposure to the t-Virus. After wandering around the city, Alice meets up with several survivors; Jill Valentine, L.J. Wayne, Peyton Wells, and Carlos Oliver, who made a deal to rescue Dr. Ashford's daughter from her school in exchange for a safe route out of the quarantined city. After rescuing Angela, the group arrives at city hall, unaware that Major Cain has intervened with Dr. Ashford's plan. He captures Alice and the others and demands to see a "demonstration" of Alice's abilities against the Nemesis, explaining that Alice was unique and adapted to the changes from the t-Virus, unlike her counterpart. Alice refuses to fight until Cain shoots Dr. Ashford and threatens to kill everyone else. She fights Nemesis until she gains the upper hand and impales him on a sharp metal object. During the fight, she realizes that the Nemesis actually is Matt Addison, who had been subjected to Umbrella's experiments alongside her. Cain orders Nemesis' immediate execution, but Alice refuses the order and the offer to rejoin the Umbrella corporation at his side. Disappointed, Cain orders Matt to kill her, however, the Nemesis rebels and attacks the Umbrella soldiers and Cain instead, although he dies in the process. Alice, Jill, L.J., Carlos, and Angela escape in the helicopter, but in the aftermath of the city's explosion, the aircraft crashes in a nearby mountain.

3 weeks after the outbreak in Raccoon City, Alice wakes up in a Umbrella facility in Detroit. It is revealed that Dr. Sam Isaacs reanimated Alice with a new strain of the t-Virus which gave her telekinetic abilities, making her Umbrella's most successful experiment. However, when Alice regains her memories, she attacks the Umbrella scientists and escapes the facility with help from Jill, L.J., and Carlos Olivera (posing as Umbrella operatives). During their departure, Dr. Isaacs order the security guards to let them go. He then orders the activation of "Project Alice".

Resident Evil: Extinction

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After escaping the Detroit lab, Alice leaves the group, realizing that she was a threat to her companions, and set out across the deserted American landscape, as the global outbreak occurs. Five years later, her psionic powers continue to grow, which proved to be a risk, as Umbrella could detect the effects of those powers and track her. They proved useful, however when she came across the convoy led by Claire Redfield, and used her powers to expand a cloud of fire to wipe out a swarm of infected crows that was attacking them. Alice informed the surviving convoy members, Carlos and LJ among them, of a supposedly uninfected outpost in Alaska called Arcadia, and it was agreed that the convoy would head there after scouring the ruins of Las Vegas for supplies. It was there than Sam Isaacs set a trap for her, with a shipping crate full of specially enhanced zombies. Using a signal to "deactivate her", Isaacs prepared to collect her body. But Alice was able to fight off the paralyzing influence, and massacred Isaacs' strike team. She had the chance to shoot down his helicopter, but realized that it could be the convoy's ticket to Alaska.

Carlos, who had been bitten by an infected LJ, agrees to drive a rigged tanker truck into a swarm of zombies, sacrificing himself to allow Alice, Claire, K-Mart, and the other survivors into the nearby Umbrella facility. Before doing so, he and Alice embrace with a kiss. While Claire drives the helicopter away, Alice decides to stay behind and finish things with Umbrella once and for all. When she finds their lab, she learns that Isaacs, now a hideous mutant from infection, destroyed the lavatories. She also learns that her blood was the key to purging the world of the t-Virus. Alice kills Isaacs in a replica of the Spencer Mansion and the Hive. A few hours later, Alice appeared, via hologram, at an Umbrella board meeting in Tokyo. She faced down chairman Albert Wesker, vowing to come for him, and "bring a few of my friends." Outside, Alice wakes up her clones, preparing for battle.

Resident Evil: Afterlife

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Alice and her clones assault the Tokyo headquarters of the Umbrella Corporation, where the facility is destroyed along with the clones. However, Wesker and Alice escapes in the same helicopter. Wesker injects her with a serum that destroys the t-cells in her body and renders her powerless. Wesker reveals that he has taken the t-Virus too and displays similar powers to Alice, although before he can kill Alice, the pilot-less helicopter crashes, with Alice being presumably the only survivor. Six months later, Alice pilots a plane to Alaska in hopes of finding Arcadia and the other survivors. Instead, she is attacked by Claire with a scarab device on her chest. Alice removes the device, but finds that Claire suffers memory-loss from a drug the device injected her with.

The two journey to Los Angeles, where they find thousands of zombies surrounding the Citadel Correctional Facility, which houses a small group of survivors. Alice crash lands on the roof and meets a group of survivors lead by Luther West, who reveals the safe haven Arcadia is actually a ship, now moored in the harbor. In the facility's prison Alice meets (and Claire is reunited with) Chris Redfield. Shortly after, the Executioner attacks and lets in the zombie horde, forcing the survivors to abandon the prison. She leads an escape through a tunnel dug by zombies that leads into the storm drains.

Alice, Claire and Chris, the only survivors, make their way to Arcadia. There, they find learn that the ship is actually an Umbrella trap to lure survivors into their grasp. Alice leaves Chris and Claire the duty of freeing the prisoners (starting with K-Mart), while she follows a blood trail to another room and finds Wesker. He reveals that his t-Virus powers allowed him to regenerate, but unlike Alice, the t-Virus is taking him over and he believes that feeding on her flesh will allow him to regain full control of himself. After a brutal fight, Alice, Claire, and Chris kills Wesker. With a ship full of over 2,000 survivors, Alice decides to turn Arcadia into a real sanctuary for survivors and broadcasts her own message of hope to draw survivors to the ship. Unfortunately, a massive Umbrella force of choppers and soldiers commanded by Jill Valentine, who is now under Umbrella´s control, approach the ship as the film ends.

Resident Evil: Retribution

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Recovered from the Arcadia by Umbrella, Alice is taken to a bioweapons testing facility known as Umbrella Prime. When Alice awakens, Jill Valentine appears and begins an interrogation. After several unsuccessful attempts, the power unexpectedly goes out allowing Alice to escape from her cell. Coming into the Operations Center, encounters Ada Wong there - immediately recognizing her as the associate of Wesker. Wesker appears on a monitor and Ada explains that she and Wesker no longer work for Umbrella as the supercomputer Red Queen has taken over the Umbrella Corporation. Wesker has sent her help in the form of a team led by Leon Scott Kennedy, Barry Burton, and a survived Luther.

As Alice and Ada make their way to rendezvous point, they locate a young girl named Becky, who believes Alice to be her mother. In an urge to escape Jill (the Security Chief of the facility) and a group of Umbrella-controlled clones including Rain Ocampo, Carlos Olivera, and James "One" Shade, Alce tells Becky that she is her mother. The group escapes the facility by flooding it, with Barry, One, and Carlos as casualties. Shortly afterward, the rescue team is intercepted by a surviving Jill and her enforcer, the clone of Rain. While Rain fights Leon and Luther (with Luther dying in the battle), Jill and Alice fight. Despite being severely injured, Alice manages to break the Scarab free from Jill's chest and frees her from the Red Queen's influence. Alice joins Leon in killing Rain. A rescue vehicle arrives to save them, but Alice - due to her injuries - collapses.

When she awakens, Alice is taken to the Oval Office in the White House, where she finds herself facing Wesker. He immediately injects her with a sample of the T-Virus and she collapses again. He informs her he has returned to her her gifts in exchange for her help in defeating the Red Queen, who is set on destroying all that remains of humanity. She vows to kill him for what he's done to her and he taunts her by showing her the waves of undead that wait outside the White House barricades.


Powers and abilities

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In Resident Evil, Alice is depicted as suffering from amnesia, but later recognizes her abilities as a highly trained private security operative, equiped with knowledgde of martial arts, guns, and military intelligence. In Apocalypse, after her exposure to the biological disease t-Virus, she displays psychic powers (akin to those of Alexia Ashford in Resident Evil Code: Veronica). The virus somehow bonded with her in a way that is not seen in others who are infected. In turn, the virus gave her enhanced senses, agility, speed, strength, and accelerated healing. A display of her physical abilities are demonstrated in a duel where she was able to overcome Umbrella's Nemesis (Matt Addison).

By the end of the film, she develops telekinetic abilities by added experimentation from Dr. Sam Issacs. In short, she gains all of the t-Virus's "positive" effects and none of its negative effects like the deceasing of higher brain function, cannibalistic cravings, and eventual decomposing or rotting flesh. Alice was able to maintain her humanity and a strong sense of confidence in her skills as an advantage against even the most superior foes. During her escape from the Umbrella Detroit facility, her telekinetic abilities were first displayed when she caused a guard in a surveillance room to bleed from every orifice, killing him slowly. In Extinction, her powers had developed further, gaining control over her telekinesis. Her powers were ranged from actions like levitating a motorcycle to unleashing a fire storm. However, even with her powers, Alice still possessed clever reasoning that would lead to her victories against enemies like Issacs and Wesker.

In Afterlife, Wesker, injects her with a serum that destroys the T-cells in her body from the virus and thus, renders her powerless. Alice actually thanks Wesker for this as it allows her to become a normal human again. But even without her powers, Alice retains the same level of confidence and fighting skills as she possessed with them before when she was a security operative of the Hive, and is even able to defeat an empowered Wesker (who had similar powers to her own) and a clone of Rain Ocampo (who was injected with the Las Plagas parasite), using her own cunning and skill. However, in Retribution, Wesker injected Alice with the t-Virus and restored her powers, saying that Alice and her powers are the last, best hope for humanity.

Alice also has a supreme level of ability with weapons. In each film she is shown using a number of weapons, but only a few function as her principal tools of death. Her main gun choice includes machine guns like Uzi, or shotguns like the Mossberg 590. She is also well equipped with knives, like the sickle.

Creation and portrayal

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In an attempt to stay away from the storyline of the video games, writer and director Paul W. S. Anderson wrote Alice was an original character for the first film, although he based Alice off on the strong women in the Resident Evil games. Anderson also toyed with the idea of the film being an allegory to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, in addition the film contains various references to the work, which included Alice's name.[6] Although the name Alice was given as the character's name prior to Resident Evil's release and is listed in the credits, her name is not actually spoken in the first film; it is first spoken in Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

Actress Milla Jovovich has portrayed Alice in every Resident Evil film, the only actor to do so. Impressed with her work in The Fifth Element and Million Dollar Hotel, Anderson cast her in early 2001.[7] Jovovich took the role because her and her brother were fans of the video game Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.[8] Originally, Anderson wrote a smaller part for her, with Michelle Rodriguez taking the lead, due to her popularity with the recent film Girlfight, and Jovovich having a year lull from Joan of Arc. When Jovovich read the script on her flight to Germany (where the first film was shot), she became angry with the project and threatened to quit. Upon arriving on the set, she confronted producer Jeremy Bolt. "He meets me with flowers and I’m like, 'You better tell Paul to meet me in my room in an hour or I’m out of here first flight tomorrow!'", Jovovich said. "Then Paul came to my room. I was like, 'You better sit down! We are going through this page by page and you are putting me back in the movie!' He’s like, 'What? What? You’re in the movie! You’re in the movie!' I’m like, 'Yeah, I’m the little girl that goes 'Look out! Oh, no! Why am I doing this?' So, yeah, he gave me back my good action sequences".[9]

While promoting the first film, Jovovich and Anderson discussed the possibility of a sequel. Anderson stated that he began writing the screenplay for the second film after completing the first.[10] and mentioned that the film would go ahead if the first film was a success and Jovovich would return as well.[10] When Screen Gems greenlit the sequel, Jovovich officially signed on.[11]

On June 12, 2005, Milla Jovovich was announced to reprise her role in the third film, Extinction,[12] returning with Apocalypse co-stars Mike Epps (L.J. Wayne)[13] and Oded Fehr (Carlos Olivera)[14]

References

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  1. ^ Collura, Scott (21 September 2007). "Resident Evil Movies Character Rundown". IGN. Archived from the original on 5 October 2007. Retrieved 5 October 2007.
  2. ^ Tyler, Josh (21 September 2007). "Resident Evil: Extinction — Review". Cinema Blend. Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. Retrieved 5 October 2007.
  3. ^ Martin, Peter (22 September 2007). "Review: Resident Evil: Extinction". cinematical.com. Archived from the original on 5 October 2007. Retrieved 5 October 2007.
  4. ^ C. Bottomley, Milla Jovovich: Building a Perfect Action Star, March 2, 2006, VH1.
  5. ^ Flint Marx, Rebecca. "Milla Jovovich Biography". Allmovie. Retrieved 2008-02-03.
  6. ^ Resident Evil DVD audio commentary with Paul W.S. Anderson, Jeremy Bolt, Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez
  7. ^ "Milla Jovovich ready for Action!". countingdown.com. 2001-03-14. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
  8. ^ "Milla Jovovich RESIDENT EVIL 5 RETRIBUTION Interview". Collider.com. 2012-01-19. Retrieved 2012-07-07.
  9. ^ "Milla Jovovich ready for Action!". countingdown.com. 2001-03-14. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
  10. ^ a b "MSN Talks to Director Paul Anderson and Actress Milla Jovovich". Spring 2002. Retrieved 2007-12-25.
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference Milla Jovovich To Return With New Director was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Huge 'Resident Evil' Sequel News Times Two!! was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ "Mike Epps Returns in 'Afterlife'- Refuses to Die!". bloodydisgusting.com. Summer 2005. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
  14. ^ "More 'Resident Evil' Casting News, Begins Shoot Monday!". bloodydisgusting.com. Summer 2006. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
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