Alright, finally sat down with a couple of friends and watched the Voice of Gaia musical in its entirety. My actual review won't be long or even that accurate, since the DVD I have doesn't have any subtitles, meaning most of the plot I could follow was what we tried to come up with/figure out by watching and what one of us was reading from online plot summaries (that really only covered the main plot points, if that). I also talked to a guy on Resident Evil Wiki who understood Russian and had seen the thing with Russian subtitles so I'll be adding plot stuff there I found out just, like, now. So, with that in mind, here's a review by a guy who had no idea what was going on for most of the time.
The musical opens up to a battle scene that turns out to be a flashback to an event during which our tragic heroine, US agent Lisa Martin, lost her memories. We are not supposed to get this yet, as it was meant to be a big plot twist, though having no clue what was going on I only found out about this after watching the musical. Zombies do some kind of interpretive dance number and we are met with a scene of the walled Croatian town this musical takes place in, Dubrovnik. Our main cast is quickly introduced as two surviving members of a scouting team return to town, Lovro and Marco. They are met at the gates by our hero Lisa Martin, Bernard Chavez (an old guy I kept calling the village elder), Dilma Chavez (Bernard's young son), Zelg (who at this point says nothing but is the best character) and Dan Gibson (a doctor trying to create a cure for the virus). There is an underlying love triangle where Marco is in love with Lisa, who in turn has the hots for Dr. Dan. None of this matters though, as Marco is killed off instantly. It turns out he was bitten, shortly after turning into a zombie and gets shot in the face by Bernard as the townspeople watch in horror. Well, at least Lovro is alive and supposedly tells the main cast that they found information about a girl on a nearby island who is immune to the virus plaguing the surrounding area. A search party is gathered up by Dr. Dan, there is a short scene with Dilma and his father where I'm pretty sure they argued about Dilma wanting to go with them. Surprisingly he does not go, as Dan's team is comprised of him, Lovro and Zelg. Roberto (who is the next best character with his silly outfit), shows them a wind chime. Remember this. At this point it is made clear that Zelg is this optimistic, happy-go-lucky guy with a funny hat. Dan also gets one but he and his dead eyes and bushy eyebrows don't deserve it. Seriously, the dude's eyes freaked me the fuck out. They get three brand spanking new bicycles (don't ask how they are gonna help getting onto an island) and go on their way as Roberto creates a rather catchy musical number with the townspeople to lure the zombies away from the party. The zombies danced too, don't worry. Then they attacked, holy shit! Came through the damn gate and everything! The townspeople manage to drive them back but Dilma was bitten in the chaos. Bernard is sad and so are the others. We are even shown a shot of our search party who also look miserable. Shit, sad Zelg is the most saddest thing I have ever seen in my life. Never make Zelg sad again or I will have your head.
Que part two of the musical. The guys have been away for way too long and Lisa goes after them, being the hero she is. Bernard also follows but they are quickly ambushed by US military forces and Lisa sees... Marco? She even calls him by his name! Wait, didn't he die just like, less than an hour ago? Well, let's carry on and see where this goes. Oh shit, Dilma also tagged along! They are all taken to USS Wyoming, who Lisa had called for help before she lost her memories. Zelg and Lovro have been captured and turns out Dr. Dan had pretended to be the terrorist who spread the virus in the area and lied about having the virus on him, in order to get the military people to give him a ride on a plane to their original destination, or else he would have spread the virus on the ship. Still, he did leave Lovro and Zelg behind, which was a shitty move. Lisa is told about her original mission by the ship's captain, Maurice Green. Her original mission having been to kill Dr. Dan and bring his research to the US government. Jesus, I don't think the US has been this evil in the series like... ever. Must be Trump. Oh, and not-Marco is there too. Turns out he is Liutenant Scott, a totally different character, just played by the same guy. So uh... Yeah, that plot point went nowhere. Right about here-ish we are treated to a trippy fever dream that I honestly have no idea about, and neither did the Russian dude who even had the subtitles. Dr. Dan is looking as creepy and dead eyed as ever, a female zombie who has been appearing every now and then in front of the hordes dances around and Lisa has a dress. Then they dance like hell. It was pretty and all but still, no idea. I guess it was like a metaphor for Lisa's mission conflicting with her feelings or something. Speaking of Lisa, she has changed her attire like four times by now since the beginning. No idea where she keeps getting that stuff in this apocalyptic setting. Then a drunken researcher named Joe comes to the scene on the ship, yes we're back there now, and says something about this virus being related to how dinosaurs died. What. Well, at least the cure is not that far away, since whales are immune to the virus and a vaccine can be made using their blood. Double what. Well, good thing since Dan has landed and found the immune girl that sprung all this into motion dead. Huh. I guess immunity doesn't really help when you're being eaten alive. Back on the ship a battle ensues with the whales (?) but Lisa manages to persuade the soldiers to stop attacking them with torpedoes (??) and to soothe them by singing (???). Soldiers get on the deck, sing a mighty sailor song and Lisa goes to get a blood sample to make a cure. Dan was attacked by zombies at some point, got infected but used an experimental vaccine on himself, passed out. Lisa gets back on the ship with the blood, they create a vaccine and save Dilma. They go back to land where Lisa, Bernard and Lovro, along with some of the US soldiers including Scott the not-Marco. Bernard is dragged away by zombies, Scott gets killed by zombies and in turn bites Lovro, who is then shot by Lisa, despite having THE GODDAMN VACCINE. Lisa then finds Dr. Dan and proceeds to stick THREE FRIGGIN' ANTIVIRUS NEEDLES INTO HIM. Because fuck Lovro, I guess. Dan wakes up, but they are surrounded by a shitload of zombies, making the victory short lived. Sweet Chekhov's Gun, Batman! Zelg appears with Roberto and a bunch of wind chimes that make the zombies docile, as they have found out certain sound waves do that. Nifty. We then end with a big song and dance number to the theme song, Voice of Gaia, end everyone except Lovro and the two Marcos are happy. The end.
Wait, what about the zombie problem? Eh, let the military take care of it, I guess.
As you could probably gather, the musical was off the wall insane. However, it had some actually good music and the dance numbers were well choreographed, so points for making the main point of having a musical worth it. The story was a bit (a serious understatement) silly and shoehorned, but I guess some sad bastard had to figure out how musical numbers fit into RE lore. The acting was good for the most part (except Dan, his dead gaze will haunt me forever) and being a musical troupe the singing was excellent. I really enjoyed the costumes too, as each was unique and interesting, without being overly silly (except in the case of Roberto but I think it fit his character). However, they were clearly on a budget and didn't have as much to work with as, for example, in Resident Evil the Stage. I didn't even know Dan was on a plane until the Russian person told me this, as they were literally just sitting on a scaffold with a whooshing sound in the background and one soldier kept holding her head, which I at some point realized was supposed to symbolize a headset. Guess the costumes were more expensive than I thought. All in all, I still thought it was a fun experience (we literally laughed in tears when the whale thing happened) for the about 1,5 hours it took. Also it was an official RE project so uh... dancing zombies are canon?
Sat Apr 22, 2023 9:34 pm by 
