ALIEN RESURRECTION (Fox - 1997) Starring Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, Michael Wincott, Dan Hedaya Screenplay by Joss Whedon Produced by Bill Badalato, Gordon Carroll, David Giler, Walter Hill Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet Running time: 108 minutes
** (out of four stars)
Alternate Rating: C-
Note: Some may consider portions of the following text to be spoilers. Be forewarned.
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Among science-fiction and fantasy aficionados, few film sagas have captured the imagination as much as the ALIEN movie franchise, which started off with a bang in 1979's unbearably creepy Ridley Scott 'haunted house-in-space' entry, and continued with a new bent in James Cameron's pulse-pounding action-thriller ALIENS in 1986 (an exceptionally well-crafted piece of storytelling which I maintain is among the best films of its type ever made). While David Fincher's artsy neo-bleak take on the series in 1992's ALIEN3 only succeeded in largely alienating (no pun intended) the sizable mainstream audience which the prior two films had accumulated and was deemed a box-office dud, it was imbued with a collection of interesting new concepts which, given the death of feisty protagonist Ripley at the film's conclusion, appeared would never be built upon -- until the announcement of a fourth entry in the series: ALIEN RESURRECTION, whose marketing tagline is "Witness The Resurrection", but might as well have been "Ripley's Back!". About twenty minutes into the highly-anticipated new film, I was suddenly struck by the realisation that I found myself experiencing something that I'd never expected to occur during the screening of an entry in the venerable ALIEN series: I was bored.
Despite all of the horrendous one-liners in the film -- it's hard to believe that Joss Whedon actually wrote this dialogue -- and a basic scenario which is woefully stale, one can definitely see the seeds of intrigue that enticed star Sigourney Weaver to pull her Ripley character out of mothballs for this fourth entry in the series. (Let's ignore, for the moment, the $11 million paycheque as an alternate motivating factor). There are some interesting and imaginative new concepts in this film, and the strange symbiosis between the aliens and Ripley here logically follows from the previous three films which have seen the two entities increasingly intertwined in an idiosyncratic love-hate relationship. For a $70 million-budgeted entry in a huge commercial franchise, there's daring evidence of a curiously awkward fusion of arthouse sensibilities with the film's basic chase narrative.
However, the film fails to fully develop upon its more intricate elements, and instead teeters precariously between conventional action and allegorism, failing to satisfy fans of either camps and often resulting in unintentional laughs. More critically problematic, however, is the wretched dialogue in the film, filled with snappy, attitude-ladened quips which pander to the audience and come off as desperately soundbite-friendly. Or even less so: when Ripley matter-of-factly uttered her one-word retort to the exhibition of a fork during her period of re-education, I felt my heart sink.
Danny Boyle (of SHALLOW GRAVE, TRAINSPOTTING, and A LIFE LESS ORDINARY fame -- well, maybe not the last one) was originally courted to take over helming duties for the project, but after he ultimately turned the job down, THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN's Jean-Pierre Jeunet signed on for the project. Under his wing, the film is predictably stylishly directed and filled with Mr. Jeunet's trademark striking visuals; there's a distinctly dull, ugly ocher look permeating the film, even becoming occasionally grainy as shot by celebrated cinematographer Darius Khondji (who won well-deserved plaudits for his stunning work in SE7EN), but the impressive (if overly familiar) grungy look doesn't make up for the film's more fundamental problems.
Chief among them is the absence of rich characters in the film. For the most part, the space pirates which eventually make up the hardy band struggling to survive the alien onslaught are nondescript and lack personality (except, perhaps, for the crass loudmouth Johner (Ron Perlman) -- he simply has a bad one). The characterization in Mr. Whedon's screenplay is woeful -- contrast the ALIEN RESURRECTION group against the characters in ALIENS, where even minor characters like Vasquez and Gorman are well-developed and consequently memorable -- and the resultant effect is very little inherent interest in the fates of the film's characters and whether they live or die. For a film whose latter half is essentially an extended chase sequence, this is not fortuitous.
Even worse, our beloved heroine Ellen Ripley, newly revived as a clone restored from preserved DNA blood samples, isn't entirely human -- she's an alien/human hybrid that's consequently more reptilian in nature (ineffectively depicted in a scene where she plays *basketball*, for crying out loud), possesses a cold and passionless demeanour, and has acidic blood coursing through her veins. It's an innovative idea and definitely a new approach to take with the character, but it doesn't work: heartlessly ruthless and caustic, she's hardly a compelling character, and it's difficult to be engaged or really touched by the plight of such a frigid, dryly-observed protagonist.
ALIEN RESURRECTION also suffers from a mundanely straightforward storyline which is overly rehashed from previous entries in the series. It's a given from the outset that the film will eventually settle into a familiar predicament where Ripley and her company of mercenaries will attempt to escape from the marauding aliens, but the degree to which this echoes the scenario from ALIENS (heroes must evade monsters and reach escape ship before the venue is cataclysmically destroyed) is striking, and the sudden leap involved between the chase sequence and the initial thread of the scientists onboard the Auriga space station studying and attempting to cultivate the aliens (highlighted in a scene which plays as a less sympathetic rendition straight out of George Romero's DAY OF THE DEAD) is remarkably jarring; it's as if the filmmakers were vainly struggling to figure out how to get the film between points A and B, and finally threw their arms in the air. The identity and motivations of a mysterious entity amidst the space corsairs, an elfin mechanic named Call (Winona Ryder -- umm, what happened?) is far less enigmatic that desired, while when the "8" tattoo on Ripley is revealed, indicating that she's the successful byproduct of the eighth cloning attempt, it's inevitable that the results of the seven previous attempts will eventually be encountered. This sequence, strongly reminiscent of a similar scene in Tobe Hooper's goofy THE FUNHOUSE, attempts to be so filled with pathos that it's mildly disconcerting that the end result is near-laughable due to distractingly poor model work.
The one impressive sequence is that of the film's heroes being pursued underwater, a visually impressive and mildly surreal experience in an interesting new context where the tension in the scene is heightened by deliberately slowing down and drawing out the pace of the action. It's a smart section of the film -- there's nothing quite as dreadful as seeing your demise slowly unfold in front of you, and being completely helpless to do anything to prevent it -- and I only wish that more of the film had been as adept.
At one point in the film, there was a briefest of glimpses of the vulnerable, fearful, and engagingly humanized Ripley which was so compelling in the first two entries of the series, and that reminds one of just how potent and riveting this film series once was; that's the Ripley that I wanted to see. The susceptible Ripley temporarily fought its way to the surface, but was quickly shunted away, usurped by her new ultra-cool, wisecracking, bad-ass persona. With ALIEN RESURRECTION, the series has finally collapsed under a weight of style and attitude.
- Alex Fung
email: aw220@freenet.carleton.ca
web : http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aw220/
-- Alex Fung (aw220@freenet.carleton.ca) | http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aw220/ "There was a six-year-old girl sitting near me, and she piped up 'That's Harvey Keitel' within seconds of the film's start. I want to know what that kid's been seeing." - Charles Odell
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