STACK #209 Mar 2022

MOVIE FEATURE

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1 Resident Evil: Extinction A possibly contentious choice, but there’s so much to like about the third one – the post-apocalyptic Mad Max vibe, those killer crows, and more.

2 Resident Evil Despite diverging from the Capcom shooter, the original remains one of the few decent video game adaptations. 3 Resident Evil:

The Final Chapter Brings the events of the series full circle with a satisfying sense of closure, despite Alice’s parting promise that her job “isn’t finished yet.”

Prequel Resident Evil:Welcome to Raccoon City introduces a new kick-ass female protagonist, played by Kaya Scodelario.The actress chats with STACK about following in the footsteps of Milla Jovovich. Words Gill Pringle W riter-director Johannes Roberts knew it would be impossible for any other actress to follow in the footsteps of Milla Jovovich’s iconic Alice in the Resident get right, so there were moments of suspense where we had to play things very quietly and tensely but we’re also on the move the entire time, so it’s a very physical shoot and that

the franchise to rest with 2016’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter . While the series featured several characters from the game, the six films were always very loose adaptations, Roberts seeking to redress that in Welcome to Raccoon City , which is very faithful to the original games. If a teenage Scodelario had little time for movies growing up, today she agrees that Jovovich is an inspiration. “She’s personally a huge inspiration in how she kept in shape enough to film those movies – and have a family,“ she says. “I grew up in an immigrant household in London and my mum was working two jobs, so I wasn’t really inspired by actors and actresses back then because I just didn’t have the time for that,“ she adds. “So I had my mum inspire me and the people around me and I was just lucky that they were all incredibly strong women, so that’s always what I felt the most comfortable playing, just because that’s what I’ve seen. The Terminator ’s Linda Hamilton was probably her greatest inspiration. “Sarah Connor was the first female character I ever saw who wasn’t kissing people and wearing red lipstick and wasn’t overly sexualised. And I loved her glasses and how she walked and smoked. There was something just so cool about her and it was nothing to do with whether it was feminine or masculine; it was just a real cool character, so that’s always been my motivation, to look for something that on the page sounds awesome and could be a man or a woman.“

was really interesting to get your adrenaline going practically every single day for three months. There was never a chill day on set. It was always very fast paced and high action and I really enjoy that,“ she tells STACK . Just 14 when she won her first

Evil franchise, smartly opting to centre this new iteration upon siblings Claire and Chris Redfield, who grew up in the Raccoon City Orphanage in the 1980s. In 1998, the Redfields are back in town, although not exactly on speaking terms when we meet them in Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City . Having already proven she could hold her own alongside the boys as Teresa in the Maze Runner sci-fi action trilogy, Roberts was confident that Kaya Scodelario would be more than a match for the film’s tough guy team featuring Robbie Amell (Chris Redfield), Tom Hopper (Albert Wesker), Avan Jogia (Leon Kennedy), Donal Logue (Chief irons) and Neal McDonough (William Birkin), along with Hannah John- Kamen’s Jill Valentine. It was a steep learning curve for Scodelario. “It was cool learning how to marry the horror atmosphere and tension with the survival and fast-pace. These are two things that are usually quite difficult to

break, cast in seminal Brit TV series Skins , Scodelario’s mum refused to let her play a Resident Evil game. “I’ve had chance to play it now and I’m amazed at how detailed they are and their quality, so it helped me see how easy it would be to translate that onto the big screen

because there is a narrative and a journey already built in,“ says the actress whose other films include Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge and Crawl . Originally adapted into film by writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson, 2002’s Resident Evil was a massive box office hit. Starring Anderson’s supermodel wife, the film spawned five sequels before the couple laid

• Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is out on Mar 16

14 MARCH 2022

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