No modern woman has spent as much screen time running in slow motion while firing two guns in 3-D towards the camera than Milla Jovovich, which considering her start as a folksy neo-hippie in Dazed and Confused (1993) and on her debut album, reflects a great cosmic disillusionment. She's like the weary blonde chick AND the SWAT guys of Romero's original Dawn of the Dead rolled into one. And I love her, from a distance. It's like she's a version of Brundlefly (i.e. Jeff Goldblum) only she's slowly dissolving into CGI replication -- another soldier in the Uncanny Valley -- fighting for her last shreds of unpixelated humanity.
I didn't seek them out, but the first four Resident Evil films have been all over Syfy lately, usually on Saturday afternoons, and I've seen them in a half-asleep lollygag. Repeat viewings and set and setting seem to make them go down easier --they don't exactly get better but amazingly neither do they get any worse. And sometimes not being worse is better than better. After an exhausting nine hours sleep, the sun beaming through your shades, not worse becomes the new black. And having the violence intercut with commercials helps too, there's less pressure to be great, more of a sense of being part of some larger picture of commerce and promos for Syfy original shows. Spread between an array of commercials that seem even more surreal and apocalyptic than the films, the rampant zombie attacks and soulless corporate vibes coalesce into one satiric saga worthy of Voltaire or Robert Downey Sr.
And of course there's Milla Jovovich (pronounced - Mee-la YO-vo-vitch - though I add a 'va' and pronounce the hard 'j' - Jo-vova-vitch. Either way she holds it all together which, considering the amount of blue screen this poor woman has to slog through, is quite a feat. English not being her first language, or French either; she was born in the Ukraine, wherefrom a genetically superior breed of humans seems to flow, like a 'wirgin' spring.
I still listen to Milla's 1994 album The Divine Comedy, once in awhile though I've given up hopes there'll ever be a sequel. Too bad because her own unique fusion of Kate Bush, Arthurian bard, Nordic alien-hybrid, and Jane Birkin is purer than all of them distilled together in a crystalline decanter. But that album came out ten years ago. Does she even have time to pick up a guitar now, with so much zombie blood on her hands?
Living up to the promise of her stoner goddess debut the year before Divine Comedy came out, she quietly sang some lines from one of her songs and tried to light a joint while strumming her acoustic guitar in Dazed and Confused (1993) and may have missed the target but established herself as one of those hauntingly perfect hippie-style goddesses that stir feelings deeper and more ancient than mere attraction, closer to the vicinity of chaste courtly love where the main desire is to be her champion in a joust. The film didn't need her to be great, but with her it was able to break through, like a midnight sun, into the realm of the ethereal.
Bigger movies beckoned, as they will when beautiful, talented, otherworldly girls present themselves like a werewolf version of a young Marianne Faithful. First there was a romantic and artistic relationship with French action director Luc Besson, and The Fifth Element (1997) where she played the savior of the universe, woven into existence from a chunk of raw material of 'the perfect being' and speaking her own bizarre language, and growing more horrified and disillusioned at humanity's capability for barbarousness the more historical microfiche she scanned. People remembered the crazy orange hair and Gautier white tape suit, but she was never objectified or sexualized even when all hot- too androgynous in a way. Besson clearly felt that same courtly joust vibe and he made sure it carried over to Bruce Willis' cubicle-dwelling cab driver.
I know just what she's going through - for six weeks every three years I become a supernaturally enlightened Buddhist monk crazy man. Power flows through me and all is love and holy light but it becomes very difficult to slow down for the normal unconscious and asleep people, or to not give away all my money and possessions to the first needy homeless man I find. Friends, family, mistresses and co-workers start to think I'm insane, or have ADHD -- that they are right means little. What matters is that Milla gamely and bravely lets that level of crazy flash across her beautiful features. She takes it all very seriously, and encourages us to wonder if maybe France was saved purely because of the sheer novelty of Joan, the purity of her madness.
Many critics were wary in advance of The Messenger, felt that this was her vanity project, that she had Besson wrapped around her finger and that she was out of her depth and Besson was letting her get away with it. But that's crap, my brothers. Besson and Jovovich both make it eternally theirs and, again, there was the sense that she was perfect for the role, having inspired first our devotion ever since Dazed, then Bruce Willis' in Fifth, and then the entire French army into a courtly chaste devotion where we were ready to storm castles in her name, and if critics balked it's quite easy to label them parallel history inquisitors. So let's.
The problem with the film of course is that we know the ending is going to be a solid downer, with Milla being sold out by the dauphin in the name of diplomacy and caution. Another problem is that everyone in the French and English armies look so alike it's hard to know who to root for. a third is that Milla plays Joan as such a schizophrenic with eye twitches and brown outs, and her notion of who god so alike to the heavenly alien recovery, it's looney tunes enough to make one wonder why Besson felt the need to show court scheming and intrigue behind her back at all. Why not just stick with what she sees and feels, so that the arrest seems to come out of nowhere?
Ancient Aliens enthusiasts such as yours truly contemplate how benevolent Nordic aliens and fifth dimensional projections from Arcturus may intervene at key moments in our history, to keep democracy alive (i.e. a Nordic 'angel' appeared to Washington at Valley Forge to convince him to keep going), and Joan's spiritual visitation might well be the same Nordic angel. Recent theories on 'star children' as a newly emerging race of genius ESP children often misdiagnosed as suffering from ADHD or autism have been sent here to lead us into a brighter tomorrow might actually play out if one such nutcase was charismatic and enough of an innate showman to genuinely lead an army to victory. I already know her initials - MJ
The idea of Milla as someone to fight for in a gallant Arthurian way (rather than as some obtainable 'prize') has continued from the Besson years and into her long and financially lucrative collaboration with current husband Paul W.S. Anderson: the Resident Evil series. So while we're here, let's take a gander at these:
Resident Evil (2002)
**
**
Before it devolves into tedious first person zombie shoot-em-up this first film offers an elaborate set-up that promises better things: the Umbrella underground facility's 'red queen' initiates a brutal lockdown, gassing all the employees after a vial of a contagion breaks accidentally/ Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes up in a bath tub with amnesia and nifty little touches like the "property of Umbrella Corp." stamp on the inside of her wedding band are worthy of Paul Verhoeven. I'm a fan of the impeccable Michelle Rodriguez, who shows up here as a SWAT team member, but after the cool laser grid room, and the Red Queen warning them what's going to happen if they shut down her defenses, it becomes the same old zombie schtick that was already old by 2002. Director W.S. Anderson seems so hung up on perfecting her slow mo kicks at mid-air pouncing zombie dogs that he forgets the human momentum needed to make us care. The final monster is pretty kickass, but it kills off the one cool relationship right when it's getting good.
In short, for all its initial charms, the first Resident Evil kind of sucks. There's no denying the instant icon Milla became in her saucy pose on the first movie poster, though. With gigantic gun on hip and a deep crimson nightgown and black boots, she's as enduring as the Raquel Welch cave girl was in 1967. Lesser women than Milla would have made make it look too cheeky (ala Charlie's Angels) or on the other extreme, too serious (ala Kate Beckinsale in Underworld). Milla got it juuust right. If her kiss with Michelle Rodriguez had gone on for a few seconds longer, that film might even be a classic.
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In short, for all its initial charms, the first Resident Evil kind of sucks. There's no denying the instant icon Milla became in her saucy pose on the first movie poster, though. With gigantic gun on hip and a deep crimson nightgown and black boots, she's as enduring as the Raquel Welch cave girl was in 1967. Lesser women than Milla would have made make it look too cheeky (ala Charlie's Angels) or on the other extreme, too serious (ala Kate Beckinsale in Underworld). Milla got it juuust right. If her kiss with Michelle Rodriguez had gone on for a few seconds longer, that film might even be a classic.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
**1/2
**1/2
Bonus points for picking up right where the last film left off, with the zombie plague spreading all through Raccoon City. One of Alice's buddies from the first film is turned into a giant killing machine programmed by the Umbrella Corp. to keep the peace as Raccoon City is evacuated. There's a fascinating moment where this shambling freak massacres a whole SWAT team surrounding a strutting (but unarmed) black dude (Mike Epps) who isn't even scratched because (as we learn from the monster's video game-like monitors, is unarmed and deemed a civilian. That's such a great statement on how bearing arms is much more likely to get you killed than anything else.
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Some of the big money from the first film's box office shows up in large scale scenes along the wall built to keep Raccoon City's contagion from spreading, where even military and cops are locked on the wrong side after the zombie-ness outbreaks too close to the checkpoint. Meanwhile the inventor of the virus, a wheelchair bound super genius named Dr. Ashford (Jared Harris, late of Mad Men) has a cure and will help our heroes escape --the usual ragtag assemblage her including cop hottie in black boots Jill Valentine played grandly by Sienna Guillory (above)--if they find his daughter (Sophie Vavasseur) who's missing somewhere in Raccoon City --she's the source model for the Red Queen hologram (and voice)! Cool touches like that, some natty wall-climbing CGI demons in a church, a motorcycle through the stained glass and a big final brawl between Umbrella's top two killing machines, nice troop helicopters, and an interestingly Teutonic corporate villain (Thomas Kretschmann) give this one legs its predecessor lacks; Anderson seems to figure out some of his own weaknesses, so he gives up on trying to be the action movie Kubrick and just focuses on momentum, and opening up the action above ground over one long night definitely helps the cause. Never underestimate breathing room. (Admittedly I didn't really like it the first time, when I was covering it as a critic, but now that I know it sucks, it's pretty good).
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Some of the big money from the first film's box office shows up in large scale scenes along the wall built to keep Raccoon City's contagion from spreading, where even military and cops are locked on the wrong side after the zombie-ness outbreaks too close to the checkpoint. Meanwhile the inventor of the virus, a wheelchair bound super genius named Dr. Ashford (Jared Harris, late of Mad Men) has a cure and will help our heroes escape --the usual ragtag assemblage her including cop hottie in black boots Jill Valentine played grandly by Sienna Guillory (above)--if they find his daughter (Sophie Vavasseur) who's missing somewhere in Raccoon City --she's the source model for the Red Queen hologram (and voice)! Cool touches like that, some natty wall-climbing CGI demons in a church, a motorcycle through the stained glass and a big final brawl between Umbrella's top two killing machines, nice troop helicopters, and an interestingly Teutonic corporate villain (Thomas Kretschmann) give this one legs its predecessor lacks; Anderson seems to figure out some of his own weaknesses, so he gives up on trying to be the action movie Kubrick and just focuses on momentum, and opening up the action above ground over one long night definitely helps the cause. Never underestimate breathing room. (Admittedly I didn't really like it the first time, when I was covering it as a critic, but now that I know it sucks, it's pretty good).
Ultraviolet (2006) - *
Then, in between Resident Evil films, this... abomination. The feeling of flop sweat pervades, with nary a single interesting fight or character or uncliche'd moment and every actor glazed over with enough slick CGI 'make-up' to cause viewers to wonder why they bothered with actors at all. Written and directed by Kurt Wimmer, a good-looking dude who clearly has some mojo magic that convinces money to throw itself at him (he also wrote the dismal Salt and wrote and directed the dismal remake of Total Recall). More than anything this film, along with the equally abysmal Charlize Theron movie version of Æon Flux from the year before, seemed meant almost to make W.S. Anderson look like Walter Hill by comparison, and Elektra with Jennifer Garner seem a modern marvel.
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) - ***
The contagion has spread all across the world by this installment - and Alice rides across the Road Warrior-inflected deserts of the American southwest in search of answers (by now she knows she's a clone being monitored and controlled to a certain extent by Umbrella corp. satellites). Bonus points for a joint lit in a very moving moment by a SWAT survivor from the previous installment (Oded Ferhr) whose dimly smug smile annoyed me in the previous film but is finally put to good use in his moment of triumph. Alice comes to the rescue of a band of hearty young survivors (including Ali Larter) when they're attacked by a murder of zombie crows, a powerful bizarre moment that reminded me of big splash pages 80s John Byrne/Chris Clarendon X-Men. crazy industrial scientist spies on her from satellites and forgets that if they can shut her down, she can do the same to them. It ends on a pretty wild cloning note, to become the best in the series so far, perhaps because it's directed by Russell Mulcahy, an Aussie behind such 'hits' as Highlander and The Shadow.
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) - ***1/2
The series was on a roll now and even Anderson steps up to the plate as if inspired by the lurch forward in quality with the last installment, and maybe his own slowly evolving talent. A weird aircraft carrier finale, some Dawn of the Dead-style building escapes, an extended opening gambit involving a hundred Alice clone attack, a crash landing on a roof, a yuppie scum who gets the what-what, great anti-corporate assaulting, and some cool trilobite-style gem mind control devices, a gigantic axe-wielding monster, all add up to the best entry in the series. Milla is actually looking substantially older and wearier with every installment, less and less are the CGI airbrushes able to disguise her slightly curled down nose, weakening chin, crow's feet. I mean this only as a high compliment. The younger girls here are airbrushed to near Maxim levels, as part of Umbrella-Disney Corps continued process of filling in the Uncanny Valley with a billion CGI-make-up smoothings. If you can't cross the valley, get the valley to cross you, very clever, Umbrella!
I give Afterlife high marks because it seems at times made by a John Carpenter fan, from the ominous simplicity of some parts of the score to the idea of trying to escape from both a prison and a city, San Francisco - At one point I swear I could hear Kurt Russell hissing "Maggie, he's dead, come on" to Adrienne Barbeau after Harry Dean Stanton is taken out by a mine on the Brooklyn Bridge. By now, though the 'under siege' zombie model, with a ragtag dwindling group of survivors dealing with an external threat has become the most inescapable story of horror. It is history. It fills the role of any needy boy that he could have automatic friends, that choosing who to trust is hard in our overpopulated world, but once it's all us vs. them, friends are anyone not trying to eat you. And if Anderson doesn't quite get to the realization of Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (i.e. that from there it's not even a hop or skip to get to fascism) at least he's really taken the ball and run with the whole insidious corporation angle. If you think I'm off the mark here, see if you can get a few minutes into Ultraviolet and Afterlife will seem like Citizen Kane.
Resident Evil - Retribution (2012)
***1/2
As with all the installments it continues where it left off from the first, but then moves sideways as Alice wakes up from falling into the ocean during the big aircraft carrier battle and into a suburban idyll mirroring the one at the start of Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake, now Alice is married to Oded Ferhr and they have a deaf child (around the same age as the real child of Milla and PWSA, born in 2007), and then again waking into realizing it's all part of a weird sprawling simulation-lab underwater lair. Explaining too much of the plot loosens it's 'anything can happen in billionaire corporate r&d' vibe, so I'll say no more - but let's just say if you're in the right mood, without your judgmental girlfriend around, with the lights off, it's pretty great, with returns of everyone from Sienna Guillory, Michelle Rodriguez and the always vaguely familiar Boris Kodjoe! Not to mention the bad guy from the previous film is now on her side and sends super spy Ada Wong (Binging Li) to her rescue. There are new monsters and old (including two new editions of the crazy giant with the meat tenderizer axe at the climax of the last film) and I appreciate that Anderson has the good taste to make the simulations real, rather than just some Matrix or Sucker Punch bit of nullification. Even Alice seems reborn, though I'm not crazy about the leather bustle. Is Anderon abusing her like Welles did Hayworth for some imagined transgression? It just doesn't look comfortable.
Milla's done other stuff, some of which I've written about:
The Fourth Kind (2009)
*
"Milla gets to make grave diagnoses.... Resident Evil's Alice has filled her with holy power so she can say, "Something is going on, there's something strange going on in Nome" and have it ring with menace, or "conversion phenomena is something not a lot of people understand," implying she does! She understands less as time goes on, but is still miles ahead of the spooked and reactionary sheriff... or is she? A tense stand-off and a violent knife murder seemed shuffled in to keep you from nodding off and Milla's blamed for everything! Milla's haunted eyes are beautifully lit, so we can contemplate her hybrid status as we go along, and realize yes, Virginia, aliens are among us, and some of them are very, very adorable." (full piece here)
A Perfect Getaway (2009)
***1/2
I loved PERFECT GETAWAY, but my expectations were rock bottom as I think I was confusing it with reviews I'd read of TURISTAS. So if you've never seen it, presume it lame and let it take you on its almost too "perfect" thrill-away... a horror film where characters actually make smart decisions! (more)
Faces in the Crowd (2011)
***
that's some rich foreshadowing since on the walk home she witnesses a murder from the infamous melancholy slasher and gets knocked overboard and wakes up with face blindness - which is ingeniously and rather terrifyingly depicted by having the actors change constantly - wearing the same clothes - so her husband is played by like six different actors - the girls don't change much (and one of them,Valentina Vargas, steals all her scenes as a lady so badass she says of one night stands: "when you wake up and don't know for a minute where you are or who is sleeping next to you - I live for that!" -- I love her!) but half the time Milla doesn't even see herself in the mirror but someone else - and when you're as hot as Milla that's a pretty horrifying thought. And the idea the murder could be anyone, even her husband and she wouldn't know - that he could come at her as the cop, or come at her as her husband, that's horrifying and Milla expertly evokes that horror - showing alas that her life in films has not been joyous - she's fought and dealt with horrors for quite awhile. She's scrappy, but by now hasn't she paid her dues? Dear God, please give your favourite avatar, Milla Jovovich, a nice warm rom-com break, and a chance at another album.
And if you do nod lissen... den to hell with you!