Alien: Resurrection (1997) Review

Written by: gabs1515   

What the fuck happened? Let's take a great series and culminate the things that make them all wonderful, mash them together, piss on it, unfold it out and make this film.  A movie like this deserves a "the good, the bad, & the ugly" type review.  Paragraphs with the ** have spoilers. The Good

If you're a gore whore, this film's for you.  This alien movie is the grossest of them all.  Showing some of the coolest I've ever seen from the alien bursting out of a man's chest and through another man's skull to the final alien hybrid being sucked through a quarter size hole in the hull of the ship.  The best part of this film is with out a doubt....Ron Perlman.  In the past couple years this man has grown on me, and all of his characters are wonderful.  This guy has tons of great lines, scenes, and his character has an all around coolness to him.  I also like Brad Dourif, not just in this film, but in everything he does.  I'm not sure why, maybe its the man or maybe its his voice, but I just like him.  He's so creepy.

The Alien special effects were done wonderfully.  The queen looked great, the close ups of the aliens looked good, and even the cgi aliens didn't look half bad.  They progressively get better and better with each new film.  The CGI aliens anyway.  It was nice to get a clear close up shot of the aliens instead of shaky cameras and quick glimpses.

The Bad The majority of the actors were worse than good but better than shitty.  So I'm not really sure how to say it.  There are FAR too many cliche lines throughout the film.  Such as spasticly screaming "What the fuck was that thing?" "Fuck Man" Fuck fuck fuck.  Calm down, I'm sure that's how it'd really be but I get so tired of these types of characters.  I don't really know if it works without them, but come on.

**Ripley.  The first three films Ripley was generally terrified of the aliens and had a huge desire to kill them all.  In this one she's Ripley's clone and fears virtually nothing, has little to no emotion, and acts like a mother to the aliens.  She....cares for them.  Come on Ripley, KICK THEIR ASS!!  That was Ripley's role in this movie, but I didn't like it.

I'm not sure what the director was smoking during the filming of this, but he should probably share it.  He's probably a great director and most of the film is ok, but just various scenes throughout, he seemed like he was OVER-directing.  Trying to hard and showing too much to accomplish something that could have easily been just a single shot.  Some of the dissolve, dissolve, dissolve scenes were unnecessary in my opinion.

The Ugly I actually started asking myself halfway through the film...who's that guy?  Like two characters just showed up while they were escaping.  There were so many inconsistencies and unnecessary scenes throughout this thing that I was starting to get annoyed with it.  The whole scene were Ripley sees her previous clones.  I kind of understand what's going through her head and its supposed to be powerful, but I thought it took away from the film.

**The whole "twist" of this film was stupid I thought.  I didn't understand why they thought they had to take it in that direction.  The first one had the alien, the second one had the queen, the third one showed it inherits traits of the host, and this one gives the queen the ability to reproduce like a human....in a womb.  First off, if the queen has a womb, where the hell did the eggs come from in the beginning.  If she did mutate through the film and get a womb, why does it look like a human/alien hybrid.   Shouldn't it be more...alienish?  I thought they tried to hard to bring in something new to the genre and ended up hurting it in the process.

The whole film just had too much of a spin-off of itself type feel to it.  Sort of how Bride of Chucky throws out the formula of its predecessors and does something different.  I liked what they did there, but I just felt so cheated with this film.

In summary, Resurrection stands fair on its own, but up against the previous three...its just not up to par.

Alien: Resurrection

Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (yeah i know, who's that?)
Written by Joss Whedon
Key Actors: Sigourney Weaver (Alien 1-3)
Winona Ryder (Mr. Deeds)
Ron Perlman (Hellboy)
Brad Dourif (voice of Chucky)

My Personal Feelings on the Film

Characters - 4/10. Ron Perlman is pretty much the only one that saves this.  The rest are either cliche or annoying.

Setting - About a military ship 200 years after the third film.  Some of it is kinda creepy, but you'd think after 200 years things would lighten up a little bit.  Why is there always exhaust coming out of doorways?  Dramatic effect I suppose.

Gore - 10/10.  So. Much. Gore.  It was pretty sweet.

Nudity - No, no nudity.  I'm kind of surprised there wasn't.  There was a nice thong shot though.

Shock Level - 7/10.  There was nothing that made me jump in my seat any, but there was a few times the gore was a little over-whelming.  Like watching the alien hybrid get sucked through that hole was a little hard to stomach.

Humor - So many failed attempts at humor.  Shitty one-liners.  Except Ron, he rocked!

Realism - 3/10.  Really? That's what happens next?  I don't think so.

Ending - Not bad, pretty predictable ending.  Ripley survives so there is a chance at a sequel if they feel it necessary.  It would be kinda cool since the aliens would be on Earth now.

Interest Level - 5/10. I kinda felt like shutting it off a couple times.  I could have just as well been doing dishes or cleaning while this was on.  Seen it once, you've seen it every time.

Classification - Futuristic Aliens.

Sequel - This is the fourth and final in the Alien series, the first being Alien, then Aliens, and before this one Alien3.  There are two spin-off films called AVP: Alien vs Predator and coming soon AVP:R - Alien vs Predator: Requiem.  I would like to see another alien sequel, even if it doesn't have Ripley.

If you've read this entire review, I want to point out if you haven't read my post that this entire week I will be watching the Alien and Predator series and writing a review for each.  So please check back, let me know what you think.  I like criticism.  Thank you and Enjoy!