Rating: 
Summary: Has faults, but when a film is this good, all is forgiven.
Review: Far and away the best ALIEN movie. The first three, there was always something inherently idiotic about the concept, and this was the first one I didn't feel that way. The cast is amazingly deep, following on the main strength of the third, i.e. cast actors stronf enough to convey a full characterization despite the limited screen time, and carries it deeper. There's hardy anyone who's just here to be killed. Winona, imitating Hitomi from ESCAFLOWNE, gives the first competent performance I've seen her give, and she's great. The most underrated actor alive, Ron Perlman, may have a career breakthrough here, and his co-star in THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (with the same director and cinematographer), Dominique Pinon, creates one of the most interesting characters with almost no dialogue. The film looks amazing, never falling into the too-dark-to-be-believable problem of the first, or the rather dull reliance on one color that the second (blue) or the third (red) had...it's actually rather beautiful, which is why he's my favorite cinematographer. This is very much Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film. Tragically...the last quarter of the film is merely really good. The first 3/4 were the best imaginable film with this concept, so the climax seems disappointing...the Newborn, the focus of most of the criticism of the film, belongs in an EVIL DEAD film, rather than an ALIEN film, and seems poorly designed in general. It works, but barely. I'm excited for the sequel, because a significant portion of the cast survives.
Rating: 
Summary: Best in series
Review: Who cares about genre - critics only. It's simply the best Aliens ever. What do you want from Ripley? She suffered so much, and has fight her way out - so she should not afraid of anything anymore. And Alien exterminator - it's best she can do now, so let her do it!
Rating: 
Summary: Actually, negative 5 stars.
Review: It doesn't get much worse than this stinking crock of garbage
Rating: 
Summary: Well . . .
Review: First, I am a huge fan of the Aliens series. I've seen every movie countless times and read some of the books and talked with my friends about the movies and aliens quite a bit. I thought this was probably the worst of the series, but still not terrible. As with my review of Alien 3, the good first: the effects are awesome. The aliens look great, much, much better than they did in Alien 3. Seeing them swim was like a dream come true for me, as I always wondered what they look like in water. Aside from that one scene in Aliens, I never saw this until now. Also, a lot of times the sets look really cool (as always). This is actually a great movie visually. Now the bad: the characters, amusing and entertaining as they may be, are stupid. Ripley is for the most part devoid of humanity, which made me very sad. Also, almost the entire last quarter of the movie is ridiculous. What happened? It wasn't spectacular before that, but it got really bad at the end. If you like the Aliens series, you should still see this movie, if just to see the swimming aliens scene.
Rating:
Summary: Alien Resurrection
Review: I don't know what all these other people are talking about, but I loved the Alien Resurrection movie. I will admit that the end sequence needed work, but overall it was superb. Sigorney Weaver is a wonderful actor and the effects were cool. I believe that this is Jean-Pierre Jeunet's best work. That underwater shot, it was unbelievable. The only problem was that no one could hold their breath that long. And I never expected that Winona Ryder was what she was. My only wish was that they had shown the doctor dying after pulling that stunt. Once again, this movie was superb and I am a hard-core Alien's fan. This is one of my all-time favorite movies.
Rating:
Summary: If only they had 0 stars
Review: First off, I would like it known that I am a hardcore Alien fan and as a fan I was thoroughly insulted by this fourth installment. every critic complains about Alien 3 but I enjoyed it immensely and it was obviously better than this swill. What I hated most about this sequel was the mutilation of the Aliens. They are what draws people to the films, they are completely menacing and terrifying. The one in Alien 3 personified this completely but in this one the Aliens are slow and hardly ever move! What was the meaning behind that (bad script, director are my answers). it is just sad watching this movie, because i was watching the whole franchise sink down the toilet. I do know that an Alien 5 is being written and has the go-ahead to be made and from what I heard about the script I think I'm better off watching my toilet function. So sad.
Rating:
Summary: it's getting worse...
Review: It appears with each successive sequel, the horror and the danger that the aliens embody becomes significantly more reduced. They just are no longer threatnening. That's very bad for this franchise because that was its hook. The aliens in this 4th film were very unengaging and unfrightening. Indeed, it appears now that with each sequel we get to see what new neat-o cool thing they can do (so, in this one, we get to see the cute alien swim underwater; maybe in the next film we can see it swing around via jungle vines). I feel like they have been reduced to being acts in a circus. It seems like the writers are struggling to find new things to do with the aliens. You will not get anything more out of this film than the first 3 films. Everything in this one seems watered down. The thrill and suspense is gone. The franchise has been run dry. They need to just leave it alone. It's now getting tacky. An undignified way for this solid franchise to go. I'm sure we'll probably be forced to endure another sequel.
Rating: 
Summary: Screenplay? What screenplay?
Review: Ummmm. . Yeah. Let's talk about something OTHER than the screenplay. The effects were STUNNING! I can't give it higher praise than that without giving something away. . . Actually I could, but I'm feeling lazy. =) The actors were a little surprising. . . Rent or buy CITY OF LOST CHILDREN to see what I mean. Weaver has never been my fav even in the Alien flix, but she does a damn good job of it in this pic! Good Job Woman! The ending, well, the ending sucked. Period. The end of the movie became an astronomical singularity and all other things were sucked into it, never to escape. The end.
Rating:
Summary: Ho-hum Hokum
Review: Okay, I admit that I am NOT a hardcore Alien fan. However, I do like Sigourney Weaver and her versatile talent as an actress, and I love good suspense and Sci-Fi. This screenplay needed H-E-L-P! The overall concept of cloning Ripley was believable and interesting--tapping into the new development of cloning sheep, which was the current event at the time. And an interesting theme: Mankind and science not learning from the past, blah, blah.... Unfortunately, the characters were just as cloned as Ripley was. Stock caricatures of other better acted performances from films of past. We didn't care about the people who were killed, because we didn't know them. Winona Ryder was miscast and irritating to watch. The most interesting of the bunch were the Aliens themselves: smart and menacing, but we didn't really see them that much. Sigourney did a fine job with her performance, but the new take on the NEW Ripley was a bit of a disappointment. She started out fine as a strong, don't-mess-with-me-mistah kind of woman, but she quickly crumbled into an emotional wreck whose cathartic breakdowns would've left anyone in desperate need of therapy. It is possible to make a 3-dimensional character of a strong nature while still making them human with compassion and feelings--it was done in the first two Alien films, (and even the third). On a technical vein, the production design was good, and the underwater sequence was shot well. That hybrid Alien-human was just not very menacing looking. The "pure" Aliens were scarier. The hybrid looked more like something from Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas." The DVD was outstanding in picture and sound quality, and probably made the film more scary than it really is. Also, the menu graphics are superb. For a blast of a time, check out the trailers from the other Alien films that are included. Interesting to look back and see how they evolved. One last thing. The end of the movie--anti-climactic. And Ripley's "I'm your mother" (I'm sorry I have to kill you) theme just didn't work. An interesting concept that was just not executed well. I wish it had worked, it could've been an intriguing pursuit for the film.
Rating:
Summary: Alien Resurrection blazes no new trails....
Review: Alien Resurrection is a slight improvement over Alien3, but is very poor in relation to the first two films. I buy the fact that Ripley was cloned, but the alien was out of her chest at the end of Alien3 and they could have at least taken more time to show us the cloning of her. The story had potential. I enjoyed the scenes where they were studying the aliens and I enjoyed the concept of the alien mutations (both in the aliens and in Ripley.) But this all gets thrown out so they can let some aliens loose to kill people. Once again, the set design and the aliens were all top notch. The few action sequences were fine, but very pale in comparison to ALIENS. I felt cheated at the scene where one of the characters was cocooned but had to tell us about the mutation of the queen (his voice wasn't even synced up at first!)Again, this film was better than the 3rd one, but because the events of the 3rd film have an effect on this one, it is ultimately disappointing. I give this film a C.
|
