>>The RE series is true to its roots as a video game. Alice is a bio-engineered kick-ass superwoman. She knows no fear, but that limits the range of her character. Every movie in the franchise is basically Another Particularly Shitty Day At The Office.
>>Take her "sacrifice" at the end of the latest installment. Now compare it to Ripley's in Alien3: when the adult alien finally has her trapped and helpless, is literally right in her face... but doesn't kill her. The horror when we find out what that has to mean, and what she must do. IMO that cements her place as one of the toughest characters in fiction of any kind.
Thanks for the plot spoiler! ;-)
Otherwise I agree that the Alien series is such a classic, not least because of Weaver's great job as Ripley. Whereas Alice mostly just needs to show a stern facial expression and dodge bullets in athletic slow motion, as you say. No zombies in Alien, though!
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
