TRIBUTE: Saying Goodbye to 15 Years of ‘Resident Evil’s’ Healthy Feminism

More than ten years before Democrats, the mainstream media and popular culture conspired to make Hillary Clinton president, and to do so through an extraordinarily creepy cult of personality around The Vagina, “Resident Evil” (2002) arrived on the scene. At first glance it looked like we had just another zombie flick, yet another video game adaptation, one more pulpy, disposable, quick-buck cash-in on a Known Brand.

But like the prior year with “The Fast and the Furious,” another throwaway B-flick no one saw coming as a spectacular franchise now old enough to drive, there was something special about writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson’s “Resident Evil.” As far as nuts-and-bolts moviemaking goes, especially within the genre, Anderson delivered a beautifully structured story and, with a relatively small budget of $35 million, one dazzling action set-piece after another.

What Anderson lacked in a special-effects budget, he more than made up for with choreography and staging. Remember the fight between Kong and the T-Rex in the original “King Kong” (1933)? By today’s standards the special-effects are ludicrous. Eighty-five years later you still buy it, though, it still thrills, because you’re focused on the beauty of the movement, the finesse of the players, the ballet of it all. Anderson puts that same creative effort into each and every one of his action scenes.

And then there was the most vital, rarefied and irreplaceable piece of the franchise puzzle, Milla Jovovich as Alice, our hero — the star, anchor and glue of what is now a 15-year-old, six-film series. Forget about her otherworldly beauty, that smoky voice, and a screen presence that matches anyone who prospered during Hollywood’s Golden Age — this woman can move.

I cannot even begin to name the action movies with female leads that give me the opportunity to study the human brain after my eyes roll all the way back into my head. For a whole host of reasons that do not require explanation, you just don’t buy a hundred-pound woman kicking all kinds of burly ass. There just aren’t enough affirmative-action quick cuts and shaky-cams in the world to suspend that much disbelief.

Jovovich is something entirely different. Throughout the first five films (all but 2 and 3 directed by her now-husband Anderson, who produced throughout), she is given no shortcuts, no place to hide. The action is shot clearly using takes that show full movements. Moreover, in chapter after chapter, in one beautiful sequence after another, the battle is sometimes slowed to what “The Matrix” called bullet-time, which only makes Jovovich’s kinetic physicality all the more impressive … and believable.

Wisely, Alice is presented as more skilled than physically tough. Unless she is built like Joy Behar, this is a crucial distinction if you are going to buy into a woman’s survival skills.

Alice is also the perfect female role-model. There is no vagina cult here. Alice just *is* a hero. Throughout 10 screen hours and over 15 years, there is not a single line of you-go-girl nonsense, no messaging. Unlike Rey in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” there’s no obnoxious “Why do you keep grabbing my hand!?” cheer moment for Social Justice Warriors; unlike Rey, Alice doesn’t hide her gender beneath a sexless persona. Alice is a woman, all woman. Tough and feminine. Confident and vulnerable. In command and womanly. Sexy as all get out, but you will respect her. A badass with those most noble and vital of female characteristics: maternal, gentle, and protective.

Rather than being snuffed out in some anti-science quest for gender-equality, through Alice, the all-important qualities that make women so necessary and special, are portrayed and amplified into something heroic.

And this isn’t only true for Alice. Her primary allies, Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) and Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), who pop in and out of the series, are just as effective.

What an achievement this is. Naturally, though, because almost all film critics are clueless, left-wing snobs, Anderson and Jovovich are given no credit for advancing the cause. To begin with, most critics are too dumb to see the unspoken subtext beneath the Hot Chicks With Guns Killing Zombies and Occasionally Offering Up Some Gratuitous Nudity (my favorite genre, by the way). They respond only to overbearing, man-hating messaging and YouGoGirl flag-planting — something so unattractive it actually sets back the cause.

In what is a worthwhile cause, that of healthy feminism, meaning that which does not wear a pussy hat, but rather advances the idea that a classy, beautiful woman need not pretend to be a man in order to be a leader and hero; and that this message can be sent by example, as opposed to chip-on-the-shoulder hectoring, the “Resident Evil” franchise is revolutionary.

But it’s probably hard for the Critical Class to embrace a heroine (are we still allowed to use that word?) who lights up with the joy of a kid on Christmas Day whenever she comes into contact with a gorgeous pile of nasty-looking firearms. In chapter five, 2012’s “Retribution,” there’s a lovely moment where Alice teaches a woman who “marched against the NRA” the joys of an automatic weapon.

That is not to in any way a claim that the series is partisan, because it’s not.

It is, however, political. All art is political, even pulp. Yes, there are evil corporations, heroic environmentalists, and religious fanatics… But behind the big curtain the whole thing is driven by a sinister plan hatched by urban-dwelling, anti-human cultural supremacists who are certain that Global Warming and over-population must be stopped.

How about that?

And in the middle of it all, killing zombies and super-zombies, is a smoking hot chick in tight leather pants with two shotguns strapped to her back.

I miss her already.

P.S. You can buy the first five films for practically nothing here. And here is my review of “Afterlife,” the just-released “Final Chapter,” and more.

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