Alien Resurrection

Rating:
Summary: Summer Popcorn Flick
Review: Terrible compared to the other three. Randomly put in the hands of a Frenchman who had never directed a movie in English. Very odd for a foreigner to direct a sequel as his first movie in another language. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure his French movies are wonderful, (haven't seen them yet) but Fox was just not smart to pull this stunt and ruin the best Sci-Fi trilogy in history.

Rating:
Summary: I was a Teen-Age Xenomorph
Review: Without a doubt the weakest in the Aliens series, Alien:Resurrection is not a superb Aliens movie, but it is an effective little horror film on its own terms with some of the best lines in the series and some nasty, startling imagery. Despite what you've heard, if you're not expecting the genius of the first two installments of the Aliens films, then you'll have a good time.

Helmed by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, "Resurrection" was presented with two seemingly insurmountable problems:

1)Find some way to resurrect Ellen Ripley, the series' tough protagonist who had flung herself (and the alien Queen inside her) into a furnace of molten magma in the third installment; and

2)Contend with massive disaffection among the Aliens fanbase, which had been disappointed with Aliens3 (another unfairly reviled movie, a stylish slice of pure grue by the then relatively unknown David Fincher).

The answer to #1 was ingenious, and makes for the most interesting idea of the entire series: Ripley is cloned by scientists on an isolated military biowarfare facility located on the fringe of regulated space. This 'resurrection' takes place roughly 200 years after the incidents on the Fiorina "Fury" 21 Prison Planet which led to Ripley's death.

The answer to #2: put director Jeunet at the reins of the movie. Ironically, Jeunet is very much like David Fincher: a consummate, if quirky, stylist, more interested in atmosphere than cogent plot (see, for instance, the intriguing "City of Lost Children").

The result is a decidedly well-paced and atmospheric little horror film, but a movie that feels oddly out of place in the larger Aliens universe. Is it enjoyable, though? Absolutely: this is my fourth time watching the film, and it's sleek, stylish, gripping, and a perfectly good horror movie in its own right. And why should movies in a franchise lumber along doing the same thing?

Ripley is the eighth clone attempted by the geneticists at the Auriga facility; we see her previous seven 'sisters', all horribly failed attempts, in a harrowing sequence later in the film. The scientists used a sample of Ellen Ripley's blood and were, naturally, trying to extricate the alien Queen; in the process they got Ripley as well, though the new Ripley has elements of the alien Xenomorph in her. She's tougher, for one; she retains little of her previous memories; her blood is highly acidic; she's got a tough new attitude to go with her tough leather vest; and she plays a mean game of basketball.

You don't really need a plot, do you? As Ripley confides to a scientist: "She's a Queen---she'll get out, she'll breed, they'll hatch, you'll die." Just after a freighter of space pirates with a cargo of human victims in deep freeze dock with the station, the aliens get loose, the base gets overrun, and the survivors---headed up by the amoral and conflicted Ripley---have to get out alive.

It's a spare plotline to be sure, but a production this stylish can take some risks. The lighting, look, and atmosphere pays homage to Ridley Scott: everything is decayed, rusting, steaming, dark, and insutrial. The aliens themselves are nasty as always, particularly in the sequences when they are tortured by---and ultimately torture---the leering, lisping chief scientist, played smirkingly by Brad Dourif.

Didn't I start by saying how odd it is that one of the most vilified aliens films has some of the best lines in the whole series? It's true. Try this one, when Ripley tries to explain what's going to happen to a terrified human host:

RIPLEY: "You've got a monster in you...a nasty one...in a few hours it's going to rip its way out through your ribcage, and you're going to die."
HOST: "Who are you?"
RIPLEY: (leering): "I'm the Monster's mother."

As for acting, this is clearly Sigourney Weaver's baby, and she carries off the Ripley role perfectly, which is no surprise: she's as comfortable in Ripley's skin as Clint Eastwood was in his Man with No Name role, and her strength gives a sometimes wobbly film a strong foundation.

As for the other characters, Aliens 4's biggest weakness is mixed bag of actors: Ryder, Dourif, and J.E. Freeman (the prattling Dr. Wren) all show off their acting chops and work like champs; Ron Perelman demands to be killed; and the rest of the pirate crew is irritating and ultimately forgettable. The usually superb Michael Wincott (Captain Elgyn), who did a wonderful turn as the Keeper of Monte Cristo in "The Count of Monte Cristo", is thrown away in a thankless role, and the great Dan Hedaya's performance as General Perez is just goofy, horrible, and hairy.

That said, if you take Aliens4 on its own terms, it's a nice little nugget of pure science fiction horror; there are some wonderful visual images, particularly of the 'research' on the aliens and the Queen Alien pregnancy. If you don't expect another "Aliens", if you're willing to leave your pre-conceptions at the door, and if you force yourself not to feel too sorry for the little puppy-dog eyed Baby Xeno, then you should give #4 a try. You'll be glad you did.