[IMG:L]Las Vegas has known its share of iconic personalities: Sinatra and the Rat Pack, Elvis, Celine and … Milla Jovovich?
The brand-spanking new Planet Hollywood Hotel & Casino certainly made a convincing bid to elevate Jovovich into emblematic presence in Sin City over the week of Sept. 17. There wasn’t a corner of the casino that didn’t feature an image of Milla’s shapely silhouette: on banners hanging above the gaming tables, on the flat screens in the elevators, on poker chips being stacked in front of high rollers, on keys to the VIP suites and even on the lapels of the dealers and cocktail waitresses.
It was all part of the elaborate launch of Resident Evil Extinction, the third film in the video game franchise that features icy eyed Jovovich as the undead-slicing Alice and is set in post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, and the actress and her co-stars from the film descended on the Strip for a pre-apocalyptic premiere that, in grand Planet Hollywood tradition, even lured some other famous faces out of Tinseltown, including Sylvester Stallone and Pamela Anderson.
“I love Milla, I love action films and she’s super hot,” said unexpected arrival Anderson, who showed up on the red carpet alongside Planet Hollywood’s resident magician Hans Klok, with whom she’s been serving as a magician’s assistant for the past several weeks (the Baywatch blonde’s most impressive trick of this particular evening was to keep her most famous assets from fully escaping her barely-hanging-on Thierry Mugler dress).
[IMG:R]But while the arrivals of Anderson and Stallone, who strolled the carpet with wife Jennifer Flavin, turned heads and made flashbulbs pop, the mother of all arrivals was eight-months pregnant Milla, who out of Alice’s shorts at thigh-high stockings made for a very glam mom-to-be in a creation from her own clothing line for Mango. Even with baby on board, she dutifully toured the arrivals line.
“Honestly, promoting this movie pregnant is really surreal,” Jovovich told Hollywood.com with a giggle. “I’ll be talking to people and start talking about the action sequences and suddenly I’m like running out of breath. And people are like looking going, ‘That’s the girl that can fly in the air and she’s like a butt-kicker? She can’t even breathe right now while we’re talking.'”
“I think Las Vegas is definitely not the place for pregnant people,” she confided. “Looking at everybody drinking and smoking and it looks so fun and I’m like ‘Okay, I’m just going to go upstairs and have a little water.” Milla admitted that after the baby comes she “cannot wait to be able to drink like three glasses of champagne and just like hang out, which probably I won’t be able to do that much anyway. But yeah, having a cocktail is definitely something I miss.”
It’s a good thing mommyhood prevented Milla from too much celebration, especially since she’s got a history of tying the knot in Sin City–she got married there, twice. “It’s like I come to Vegas and all I want to do is get married,” she said. “It’s just like the devil takes hold of me or something. The contrast–it’s like city of evil.” Unfortunately, her fiancé writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson had to miss the premiere, or they might have put a spur-of-the-moment end to their wedding plans.
[IMG:L]”I’m so excited to be in Vegas right now!” squealed Ali Larter, an angelic vision in a shimmery Marchessa dress that was as glittery as the Vegas Strip. “I haven’t been back here in about five years.”
Ali was over the moon about the energy that surrounded the red carpet as scores of hotel guests and gamblers strayed away from the tables to catch a glimpse of the celebrities. “I think this premiere is really kind of the culmination of it all,” said Larter, who joined th cast as video game vixen Claire Redfield and may take center stage in future sequels. “It’s at Planet Hollywood, all the poker tables have Milla’s image on them, it’s playing in the elevators … and I just think it’s great! Las Vegas is a place of sin, so where else to end the world? I mean, come on!”
Oded Fehr had no problem being surrounded by butt-kicking babes, having developed enormous affection for his very different co-stars. “Milla is nuts and she would be the first one to admit it. She’s absolutely nuts in the best way possible. She has this great energy, she’s just fun and crazy and just wonderful … She’s got the most action, she’s got all the high kicks and all the stuff, and she does it great. She has no ego.”
Meanwhile, he revealed, “the funny thing about Ali is that I don’t think she got to do that much tough girl action before. It was just so sweet. She puts the costume on and she just gets so excited by the guns and the cap. Then she has the big rifle and she’s like ‘Ahhh!!”
After the screening, the lavish afterparty was held on the sixth floor pool level. Arriving guests were greeted first by a number of caged mannequins in zombie clothes and makeup on the way into the pool area, and then by a trio of topless commando girls in pasties, booty shorts and military caps, their clothing and bodies sprayed with camouflage paint. Freakish mutants wandered through the party, The circular bar featured a dilapidated Statue of Liberty from the New York New York casino, as it appears in the film’s post-apocalyptic vision, and a topless woman made up with strategically placed mutant skin lesions gyrated atop a high perch as many male guests snapped photos of her, proving even a sci-fi-action film could be tweaked with a little Vegas naughtiness.
[IMG:R]As Ali Larter entered the party she was greeted by her blonde BFF, actress Amy Smart, and holding hands they skipped merrily to the VIP area cabanas. Only Ashanti, one of the films co-stars seemed to be blasé about the whole scene–but then again between her own touring, a lengthy in-town visit for MTV’s Video Music Awards and frequent trips with friends and family, she may be a little burned out on the palm-dotted playground.
“I got used to Vegas,” she sighed, but then revealed what’s helped her get through. “As long as I can shop, I’m good.”
