Time: 109 Minutes
Age Rating: R16 – contains violence and offensive language
Cast:
Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley
Winona Ryder as Annalee Call
Dominique Pinon as Dom Vriess
Ron Perlman as Ron Johner
Gary Dourdan as Gary Christie
Michael Wincott as Frank Elgyn
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Ripley 8, a human-alien hybrid clone, is aboard a vessel, Auriga, along with space pirates. However, when aliens invade Auriga, Ripley does her best to prevent them from reaching and destroying Earth.

I distinctly remember when I watched Alien Resurrection for the first time. I hired out DVDs of the first four Alien movies, I knew that Alien and Aliens were classics going in and Alien 3 was hated by a large number of people. However, I didn’t know anything about Resurrection so I went in fairly open minded after surprisingly enjoying the third instalment, and I really wasn’t prepared for it. It’s one of the first movies I remember clearly disliking. After some time I decided to revisit it, and it still doesn’t work for me.

I remember when I first watched the movie, the first 5 minutes gave me great pause. Alien 3 ended things definitively by having lead character Ellen Ripley sacrifice herself to kill the alien inside of her. So the only way to bring the movies back with her is to literally resurrect her, albeit with cloning. That is a potentially interesting idea which could’ve been explored, but it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s basically just there as an excuse for Sigourney Weaver to be back. However, they also added in an aspect in which Ripley is brought back with the Alien inside of her, which never made sense to me and started things off on a bad note immediately. As you can figure out early on, it’s a very over the top movie. There are some scenes which are straight out of a cartoon, and some of the goofiness shows in moments like the infamous basketball scene. Any ideas with potential aren’t used to their fullest, which is a shame considering how weird this movie gets. The plot itself feels recycled from previous Alien movies, it’s not engaging and you’re not interested in any of the characters. It’s been said that there were numerous production issues, but honestly the script from Joss Whedon really didn’t help matters. I will say this, if you aware of Whedon as a writer and person and find many of his inclinations to be grating, then Resurrection will definitely annoy you. This is especially the case of the dialogue and characters which are insufferable, and the sleaziness ends up being more uncomfortable than the actual aliens, and the offputting nature isn’t intentional. The comedy is bad and the dialogue is awful with some bad one liners. For what its worth, it does improve somewhat in the second half. I wouldn’t say it becomes good, but it is definitely more watchable, and it feels a little less dull. By the end of the movie though, it just felt that it was a very unnecessary installment in the franchise. Despite all the potential it had set up, the movie doesn’t do much with it.

Much of the cast are just wasted, and it doesn’t help that the movie has the worst collection of characters in an Alien movie. Sigourney Weaver returns to the role of Ellen Ripley, she can act kind of weird here, but it gets a pass since technically she’s a clone and somehow part alien. They really don’t take advantage of that aspect all that much though. There are plenty of terrible and over the top performances, and most of the characters are absolute cartoons. Some of the cast members include talented actors Winona Ryder, Michael Wincott and Ron Perlman and they are generally wasted here. That being said, Perlman is at least effortlessly fun to watch as always.

Interestingly, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, most known for his 2000s film Amelie, is the one directing Alien Resurrection. His work here is a bit of a mixed bag. I do like much of the look of the film, I particularly enjoyed how weird the visuals could be. However, despite the high level of violence and creepiness, it never reached to the point where the movie was actually scary. The xenomorphs themselves are on screen for so long that they aren’t scary; even Aliens made them scarier. All the close ups of characters just end up being more silly and funny than actually unsettling. The spaceship setting is also by far the least interesting of the franchise. Resurrection does have a stronger focus on action, much of it is over the top and cartoonish yet somewhat generic. However, it is admittedly kind of entertaining to watch. There’s a set piece which involves underwater which is pretty good. There’s also some good VFX and practical effects, and it definitely delivers on being the goriest of the 4 solo Alien films.

Outside of some interestingly weird ideas and visuals, Alien Resurrection a terribly written, misguided and even dull movie, and by far the worst entry in the Alien franchise. For me, Alien 3 is the conclusive end of the Ellen Ripley story and Resurrection is some random unnecessary continuation. It’s perhaps worth checking out if you liked the previous few movies and you are curious enough, otherwise you aren’t missing out on much.