Alice (Resident Evil)
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Alice | |
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Resident Evil character | |
Milla Jovovich as Alice in Resident Evil: Afterlife. | |
First appearance | Resident Evil (2002) |
Last appearance | Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) |
Created by | Paul W. S. Anderson |
Portrayed by |
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Voiced by |
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In-universe information | |
Alias | Alice Abernathy Janus Prospero |
Species | Human Clone |
Gender | Female |
Occupation | Former security specialist Covert operative at Umbrella Corporation Anti-Umbrella activist |
Spouse | Spence Parks (fake husband, deceased) |
Nationality | American |
Alice is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Resident Evil film series, which is loosely based on the video game series of the same name. Though she is not a character in the games, she has interacted with game characters such as Jill Valentine, Claire Redfield, Carlos Olivera, Chris Redfield, and Leon S. Kennedy. Alice, portrayed by Milla Jovovich, plays the principal role in each film, with the storylines mostly revolving around her campaign to bring down the Umbrella Corporation.
History[]
In film[]
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Resident Evil[]
In Resident Evil, Alice is a security officer working for the Umbrella Corporation. She and Spence Parks, posing as a married couple for cover, were placed at a mansion outside Raccoon City that is an entrance to The Hive, a functional large top secret underground laboratory owned and operated by the Umbrella Corporation, built a half mile underground. Some time before the events of the first film, Alice betrays her employers and begins to secretly work to expose them to the world, after learning of their dangerous and unethical experiments.
Waking up with amnesia, she recalls nothing of this and joins Matt Addison, an environmentalist posing as a police officer, and a team of commandos who take them and venture into the Hive to investigate why the artificial intelligence computer, the Red Queen, killed all the employees. Spence is found, appearing to suffer from amnesia like Alice, and it is revealed that the memory loss was caused when a nerve gas was released into the mansion by the Red Queen, one of its countermeasures to prevent a viral outbreak from spreading. Despite working for Umbrella, it is revealed Alice was willing to expose Umbrella's dangerous and illegal experiments in order to bring the company down. She is shown to be the contact of Matt's sister, Lisa Addison, who was trying to smuggle out a sample of the T-virus; Alice tells this to Matt. However, at the end of the film, Spence, who was having a real relationship with Alice while playing the part of her husband, is revealed to have found out about her plans. Misinterpreting Alice's intention to bring Umbrella down, Spence had stolen T-virus samples with the intent to sell them on the black market for both of them, releasing the virus in the Hive to cover their tracks. Upon abandoning the remaining survivors and getting on the train with the anti-virus, Spence is killed by the Licker which the Red Queen released from captivity. Kaplan, who disables the Red Queen and escapes with the team, is also killed by the Licker. Rain, despite being given the anti-virus had turned anyway due to her prolonged state of infection and she is eventually killed by Matt as they battle the Licker on the moving train. Alice and Matt are the only survivors to escape the Hive. Upon returning to the mansion, both are seized by Umbrella scientists and taken into quarantine at the Raccoon City Hospital. Alice awakens on an operating table in a white room with no knowledge of what has happened, heading outside, she sees the infection has ravaged Raccoon City.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse[]
In Resident Evil: Apocalypse, taking place sometime after the T-virus outbreak in the Hive, Umbrella reopens the facility to find out exactly what happened to the commando team they sent in the previous film, only to unleash the infected undead and viral experiments on Raccoon City, forcing the company to quarantine the city and slowly evacuate its non-infected citizens after extracting nearly all essential company personnel and their families. They also reawaken Alice, whom they had experimented on with the T-virus after capturing her (its later revealed that she had bonded with the virus on a cellular level), and let her loose in the city to observe her. Alice soon meets with Raccoon Police Department STARS officers Jill Valentine and Payton Wells and reporter Terri Morales, and saves them from attacking Lickers in a church. The group is then recruited by Umbrella researcher Dr. Charles Ashford, who offers them safe passage out of the city in exchange for locating and retrieving his daughter Angela, who went missing during the extraction of Umbrella's vital employees and their families after her security car was involved in a collision.
Alice subsequently explains that Umbrella (who has since sealed the city's last exit after the virus reached it) plans to nuke Raccoon City to destroy the infection and all remaining evidence of it, while blaming the whole thing on a meltdown of the city's nuclear power plant. Shortly afterwards, Nemesis, a heavily mutated experimental supersoldier sent by Umbrella to eliminate all remaining STARS members, appears and kills Wells, and Alice is forced to break away from the group to lure it away from them. She later makes it to Angela's school and rendezvous with the group, which now includes civilian L.J. Wayne and abandoned Umbrella soldiers Carlos Olivera and Nicholai Ginovaef, the latter two of whom were also recruited by Dr. Ashford. They manage to find and rescue Angela, although Ginovaef and Morales are killed in the process. The group then makes it to Dr. Ashford's extraction point, only to be ambushed and taken captive by Umbrella forces led by Major Timothy Cain. When Nemesis shows up, Cain forces Alice to fight it by coldly executing Dr. Ashford and threatening to do the same to the others. As they fight, Alice comes to recognize Nemesis as Matt Addison, who was also experimented on following their capture by Umbrella after having been mutated by an injury he sustained from the Licker; in turn, Nemesis regains his memories and, upon recognizing Alice, turns against Umbrella and helps her fight Cain's forces. They and the group succeed in taking down said forces and seizing the helicopter, but Nemesis is killed protecting Alice.
As the survivors make their escape, Alice throws Cain from the helicopter, leaving him to be killed and devoured by the approaching zombie horde, including a now-zombified Dr. Ashford. As the survivors reach the outskirts of Raccoon City, the nuclear bomb detonates over the city, and the resulting blast wave causes the helicopter to crash. The turbulence causes a metal pole to be thrown towards Angela, but Alice takes the blow and is impaled, and then killed in the crash. Her body is later retrieved by Umbrella researcher Dr. Alexander Isaacs, who takes her to a research facility in Detroit. Three weeks later, Alice wakes up in the facility and escapes with help from Olivera, Valentine, L.J., and Angela. As they escape, Dr. Alexander Isaacs, a high-ranking Umbrella employee, reveals that Alice's escape is part of Umbrella's plan for her.
Resident Evil: Extinction[]
In Resident Evil: Extinction, five years after the incident of the Hive, the world has succumbed to the T-virus. Alice stays on the move to avoid capture by the Umbrella Corporation after she learned Umbrella could track and control her through satellites. She left the group to protect them, using the satellites trajectories to stay off the grid. On her travels she finds a journal detailing the possibility of Alaska as a sanctuary, isolated from the rest of the T-virus infested world. However, the Umbrella Corporation is utilizing the White Queen, a more advanced artificial intelligence computer that is able to find Alice. Early in the film, she uses her mental powers to save Claire Redfield's Convoy — the convoy which L.J. and Carlos have since joined. However, in doing so, the massive psionic activity produced by Alice is detected by the White Queen through their Umbrella satellites, and Isaacs is then made aware of her location. The leaders of the convoy decide to make the trip to Alaska, but first refuel in Las Vegas. Isaacs decides to go after Alice, defying orders from Umbrella Chairman Albert Wesker.
During a battle between the zombies and survivors, Isaacs attempts to shut down Alice, causing the Umbrella logo to flash in her eyes again as the satellite network requires her. As Alice is frozen in place, she is able to overcome the control by "frying" the satellite's processor through her advanced mental powers. She then goes after Isaacs, but he manages to escape, however, not before being bitten by an advanced version of a zombie which he had tried to domesticate using blood samples from Alice's clones (which Isaacs, as seen at the beginning of the film, had been testing for any similarities to the authentic Alice's physical and mental capabilities). Those left head to the Umbrella base and the now-infected Carlos briefly kisses Alice before driving an oil truck loaded with dynamite into a horde of zombies to clear the way. The convoy leaves on helicopter while Alice stays behind. She meets with the White Queen who informs her that the cure to the infection would lie in Alice's blood. Alice pursues Isaacs into the lower levels, even seeing a clone of herself, but is soon attacked by Isaacs, who has since mutated into a monster called "the Tyrant". The clone awakens, seemingly dying soon after. Alice follows Isaacs into a replica of the mansion from the first film. The two fight, both using telekinesis, and eventually make their way into the laser room, also from the first film. The lasers cut Isaacs into pieces and just as Alice is going to meet the same fate, the lasers dissipate, turned off by Alice's clone.
Afterwards Alice, via holographic technology, interrupts a meeting between Wesker and the other Umbrella executives. She tells them that she is coming after them and will bring "a few friends." Standing beside the awakened clone, they look out into a room filled with hundreds more, and as other clones begin to wake, the film ends.
Resident Evil: Afterlife[]
In Resident Evil: Afterlife, taking place 18 months after Resident Evil: Extinction, Alice and her clones invade an Umbrella underground facility located in Tokyo, Japan, in order to eliminate the corporation and Albert Wesker. Wesker gets injured by grenades released by an Alice clone, but is immediately healed after and then he escapes and activates a bomb that destroys the facility and all of the clones. The real Alice escapes from the Tokyo facility by hiding on the helicopter that Wesker is on. Wesker injects Alice with a serum that seemingly deprives her of all her superhuman powers, including her telekinesis, while demonstrating that he has developed similar abilities due to exposure to the T-virus. Alice thanks him for this, as she is now fully human again. Just right before Wesker shoots the now defenseless Alice, the helicopter crashes into a mountain. Thanks to her not-yet-fully-disappeared superhuman powers, Alice survives the crash.
After barely escaping with her life, six months pass. Alice flies to Alaska to find the chopper from Umbrella completely deserted, and the book that she gave K-Mart in Resident Evil: Extinction.
She then finds Claire Redfield beaten up in the woods, wearing a mind control apparatus called a Scarab, that Umbrella forced onto her chest. Alice removes the Scarab and finds out that Claire has lost all of her memory due to a drug it was injecting her with. They then fly together to Los Angeles Prison, where they stumble upon Claire's brother Chris Redfield and other survivors: Bennett, Angel, Wendell, Kim Young, Crystal, and Luther West. As they try to get out of the prison when the zombies invade, Bennett kills Angel out of frustration, then escapes by himself with Alice's plane. Crystal and Wendell get killed by zombies, and an Axeman (The Executioner from the fifth video game) chops Kim Young in half, leaving only Chris, Claire, Alice, and Luther in the prison. Claire and Alice kills Axeman and then escapes with Chris and Luther, using the prison's sewer systems.
On the way, Luther is attacked and presumably killed by a zombie. Alice travels with Chris and Claire to an abandoned oil tanker, the "Arcadia", that is broadcasting a message stating that it's infection free. This is, however, revealed to be a trap by Umbrella to lure in survivors so that they can be experimented on, with K-Mart being among these captives. They find Albert Wesker waiting for them, who reveals that he has been periodically consuming humans to stabilize the T-virus’s effects on him. In the final battle, Alice, along with Claire and Chris, face Wesker, whose powers prove too much for Claire and Chris and he locks them up. However, Alice, with the help of a recently freed K-Mart, defeats Wesker and apparently kills him with a shot to the head.
Wesker somehow survives even though his head is blown open and Claire and Chris unload their pistols into him. Later, Wesker completely regenerates from his wounds by consuming Bennett and escapes on a helicopter, then activates a bomb. However, Alice has placed the bomb on Wesker's chopper and it explodes. Afterward, a parachute is seen in the air after its explosion. Unbeknownst to the group, Luther survives his zombie attack in the tunnel, and staggers out from a massive drainage pipe.
After releasing all of the survivors on the Arcadia, Alice decides to turn it into a real sanctuary and broadcasts a message giving the ship's location and that it's infection-free before spotting a massive fleet of Umbrella helicopters heading their way loaded with soldiers. The fleet is revealed to be led by her former comrade and fellow Raccoon City survivor Jill Valentine, who is under the control of a Scarab.
Resident Evil: Retribution[]
In Resident Evil: Retribution, Umbrella forces reach Arcadia and open fire on the survivors. Alice fights in the battle aboard Arcadia and was injured in the destruction of an Umbrella osprey, leaving her thrown overboard. The fates of Claire, Chris and K-Mart remain unknown. Recovered from the waters by the Umbrella Corporation, Alice is taken to a bio weapons testing facility known as Umbrella Prime. When Alice wakes, Jill Valentine begins an interrogation. After several unsuccessful attempts, the power unexpectedly goes out, allowing Alice to escape from her cell. After escaping a laser grid defense measure, Alice finds herself in a simulation of Tokyo, where she battles a horde of zombies that include Japan's patient zero. About to be overwhelmed, Alice flees through a door that leads back into the facility and enters the Operations Center only to find the personnel dead. Alice encounters Ada Wong - 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.
While Alice wants to blast her way out of a window to escape, Ada reveals to her that they are located beneath an ice field. Wesker informs Alice that he has sent her help in the form of a team led by Leon Kennedy. They set out to reach the suburban recreation of Raccoon City after a brief conversation with the Red Queen, who promptly threatens them that they are going to die.
Alice and Ada are able to reach the simulation of Raccoon City after a brief battle in the New York simulation against two Axemen. During their trip, Alice locates a young girl named Becky who believes Alice is her mother. Alice recognizes the girl from her memories of the clone's experience and vows to protect her. While trying to escape the house, the group encounters Jill and a group of soldiers, including Alice's clones and clones of Alice's former allies: Rain Ocampo, Carlos Olivera, and James 'One' Sharpe. A shootout occurs, resulting in Ada's capture and Alice and Becky's escape. Entering the Moscow simulation, they encounter a second clone of Rain, who Alice asks to look after Becky as she goes forward to meet the rescue team. Alice enters the Moscow environment and rescues the group from a collection of Las Plagas undead and a Licker. They return to Becky and Rain to escape.
With time to spare the team reaches the elevators; however, the Licker captures Becky while Jill and the clones return and open fire. Alice pursues the Licker to rescue Becky, finding her in a cocoon with the Licker. Alice disables the Licker and rescues Becky. After she recovers explosives, Alice and Becky travel through a tunnel and find the cloning chamber, where they find hundreds of clones of themselves. Alice reassures the girl that she is her mother and they are again attacked by the Licker. Using the explosives from earlier, Alice destroys the Licker and escapes with the child. They reach the surface and reunite with the rescue team while Umbrella Prime floods beneath them when the explosives go off.
Shortly afterward the rescue team is intercepted by a surviving Jill and her enforcer, the clone of Rain. While Rain fights Leon and Luther, 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 fighting Rain - who has injected herself with a Las Plagas parasite - but both are overpowered by the enhanced clone. After being severely injured by a hit to her chest, Alice notices a collection of Plaga undead beneath the ice. With the help of the freed Jill, Alice stops Rain by breaking the ice beneath her feet. A rescue vehicle arrives to save them, but Alice collapses from her injuries.
When she awakens, Alice is taken to the Oval Office in the White House. Escorted into the room alone, Alice finds herself facing Wesker. He immediately injects her with a serum seemingly returns her superhuman abilities. He informs her he has returned her gift 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, claiming she is the weapon to prevent impending extinction at the hands of Umbrella and the Red Queen.
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter[]
In Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, flashbacks reveal that Dr. James Marcus, the original founder of the Umbrella Corporation, had a daughter who was dying of premature aging. Desperate to save her, Marcus developed the T-virus as a way to cure all diseases on Earth. After having had his creation taken away from him, Marcus' business partner Dr. Alexander Isaacs tried to convince Marcus to use the T-virus for military purposes. When he refused, Isaacs ordered Albert Wesker to kill Marcus.
Alice awakens in the now-ruined White House, after being betrayed once again by Wesker. While searching for survivors, the Red Queen (Ever Gabo Anderson) appears and tells Alice that she must return to the Hive in Raccoon City within 48 hours, where the Umbrella Corporation has developed an airborne antivirus, which will kill every organism infected by the T-virus, before the remainder of humankind is wiped out. When asked why she is betraying her creators, the Red Queen simply says that she will tell Alice once she arrives at The Hive.
On her way to Raccoon City, Alice is captured by Isaacs, whose clone Alice previously killed, but she manages to escape his convoy. Alice later arrives in the now-destroyed Raccoon City and is captured by a group of survivors, consisting of Doc, Abigail, Christian, Cobalt, Razor, and Claire Redfield, who is revealed to be alive after the attack on Arcadia. After learning that a group of armored vehicles and a horde of zombies is coming their way, the group prepares to make their last stand. They manage to defeat the enemy forces, although Cobalt is killed in the process. The group later realizes that a second horde is coming in their direction.
With no defenses left, Alice and the crew decide to get to the Hive entrance, located at the bottom of the atomic bomb crater which destroyed the city. However, Wesker, having taken control of the Hive, releases mutated guard dogs, killing Christian. Upon arriving at the Hive, the Red Queen appears to Alice and explains the reason for her betrayal. She reveals that a video was uploaded to her program which contained the recording of the Umbrella executives, including Isaacs, having a meeting regarding the world, formulating a plan to release the T-virus in order to cleanse the world, save the rich and powerful with cryogenic capsules hidden in the Hive, and later rebuild the world in their image. The Red Queen, although programmed to never hurt an Umbrella employee, was also programmed to value human life, which is why she enlisted Alice's help to stop Isaacs. The Red Queen warns Alice about one of the group being a spy for Umbrella.
Entering the Hive, the group encounters several obstacles, and Abigail and Razor are killed. After planting bombs around the Hive, Alice confronts the real Isaacs, while she and Claire are captured by Wesker and Doc, Umbrella's spy. A cryogenic capsule opens, revealing Alicia Marcus, Umbrella's co-leader and Marcus' daughter; Alice is revealed to be a clone of Alicia. Isaacs plans to eliminate Alicia and gain full control of Umbrella, but Alicia "fires" Wesker, which signals the Red Queen to crush his legs with a security door. Doc tries to shoot Alice, but his gun is empty – as Alice had deduced his treachery earlier – and he is killed by Claire.
Encouraged by Alicia's words, Alice and Claire fight Isaacs, who is eventually killed by his own clone – the one Alice had encountered en route to the city – and Alice releases the antivirus, killing the undead. The bombs planted within the Hive explode, killing everyone inside, including Alicia, all the frozen Umbrella employees, and Wesker. Claire later wakes Alice, who survived as the antivirus killed the T-virus within Alice's body. The Red Queen gives Alice an upload of all of Alicia's memories of childhood. Some time later, Alice travels to Manhattan, stating that the antivirus may take several years to reach all corners of the globe and until then, her mission is not finished.
In literature[]
Alice appears in the three novelizations of the films. The novels, for the most part, retell the events of the films in greater detail and provide some additional information. In the novels, such concepts as Alice's surname and her real name, Janus Prospero, are presented. In the films it is never revealed if Alice remembers any of her past beyond the flashbacks seen in Resident Evil. The novels explain in greater detail her relationships. The first focuses on her relationship with Spence while the third mentions her possible relationship with ex-U.B.C.S soldier, Carlos Olivera. In the third novel it is revealed that Carlos does have feelings for her and that some of Alice's thoughts rest on him while she is away from him.
Concept and creation[]
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. Anderson initially toyed with the idea of the film being an allegory to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but the idea was not followed through completely. Despite this, the film contains various references to the work, which included Alice's name.[1] Milla Jovovich has stated she wanted the character to be "the female Dirty Harry."[2]
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. Also in Apocalypse, at the end of the film, Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivera, posing as Umbrella personnel, produce an identification document in which Alice is called Janus Prospero. A promotional document released by Screen Gems called The Raccoon City Times further confirm that Alice is a nickname and Janus Prospero is the character's real name.[3] However, in the novelization of Resident Evil: Apocalypse, her name is Alice Abernathy.[citation needed]
Characterization[]
In Resident Evil, Alice is depicted as suffering from amnesia. In Resident Evil: Apocalypse, her character is portrayed as tough and rugged, as she is more familiar with the situation surrounding her. She plays a similar role in Resident Evil: Extinction. Since then she has been an "iconic figure and is closely associated with the series," becoming far more skilled and rugged since her first appearance.[4] She is primarily portrayed in Apocalypse and Extinction as "a supremely efficient killing machine"[5] and bio-weapon, while in the first film, she is shown first recognizing her abilities as a highly trained yet human security operative. Alice's superhuman abilities, as well as the use of various styles of martial arts and gun play have made her an almost super hero style of character and has one "cheering for her instead of wondering how the hell she managed to suddenly become Spider-Man."[6][better source needed] For example, in Apocalypse, after her exposure to the T-virus, she displayed psychic powers and was able to use those powers to kill a security guard with a glance (through a monitor he was watching her on). She also had the ability to jump long distances, as seen in her initial confrontation with Nemesis. In Extinction, her powers, especially her telekinetic powers, had developed further, (however, she still experiences blackouts and massive headaches if she pushes her powers too far). As of Resident Evil: Afterlife, Alice has had all of her superhuman abilities taken away from her by the T-virus via the serum Chairman Wesker injected her with by disabling her T-virus cells, though her military like training still gives her a combat edge when dealing with bioweapons.
Weapons[]
Alice has shown a supreme level of ability with all sorts of weapons. In each film she is shown using a number of weapons, but only a few function as her principal tools of death. The first film was the only one where she only used what weapons she could salvage, as she had amnesia and wasn't armed properly. In Apocalypse, she used a Mossberg 500 shotgun and a pair of Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine guns and Para-Ordnance P-14 pistols as her main weapons. In Extinction, she carried two Para-Ordnance Nite-Tac pistols, Mossberg 500 shotgun and a pair of Kukri knives,[7] and used them to great effect. They were shown but never used in Afterlife, where Alice had many clones besides herself. The Alice clones in the beginning mainly used straight-bladed odachi blades and Brügger & Thomet MP-9's. The original Alice preferred to use a pair of 10-gauge double-barrelled shotguns (oddly loaded with quarters, killing zombies with American currency in Afterlife) and a pair of Smith & Wesson Model 460V revolvers.[citation needed]
See also[]
- List of female action heroes
References[]
- ^ Resident Evil DVD audio commentary with Paul W.S. Anderson, Jeremy Bolt, Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez
- ^ https://uproxx.com/hitfix/resident-evil-alice-women-in-action-movies/
- ^ "Raccoon City Times" (PDF). Sony Pictures. 1 July 2004. p. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 September 2004. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
MISSING PERSONS REPORT - An anonymous family member of Janus Prospero (known only as Alice to her friends and family) stepped forward today, accusing the Umbrella Corporation of kidnapping.
- ^ Collura, Scott (21 September 2007). "Resident Evil Movies Character Rundown". IGN. Archived from the original on 5 October 2007. Retrieved 5 October 2007.
- ^ Martin, Peter (22 September 2007). "Review: Resident Evil: Extinction". cinematical.com. Archived from the original on 5 October 2007. Retrieved 5 October 2007.
- ^ Tyler, Josh (21 September 2007). "Resident Evil: Extinction — Review". cinemablend.com. Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. Retrieved 5 October 2007.
- ^ "Lot 212: RESIDENT EVIL 3 Alice (M. Jovovich) Knives". icollector.com. Retrieved 28 October 2007.
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