Warning: This review gives out crucial plot information. Do not read further if you wish to be surprised.
MUST BE A CHICK THING by Kristian Lin
I ha't. It is engendered. Hell and night Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.
Othello Act I, Scene 1
I think ALIEN: RESURRECTION might have been more easily understood (if not necessarily better liked) if more moviegoers were familiar with the filmography of director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Jeunet remains a cult figure due to his surrealistic, nightmarish, darkly funny French films such as DELICATESSEN and THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN. For its own reasons, 20th Century Fox tapped him for the fourth film in the ALIEN franchise. The result is a mixed bag that's bound to turn off some Jeunet fans and action-movie nuts, but I find it fascinating.
The film begins when Lt. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), or at least a facsimile of her, wakes up in a laboratory. She's part of extralegal weapons research conducted by the U.S. military, which has cloned her 200 years after her death and cross-bred her with the aliens that in an attempt to create a new weapon. Alas, the aliens get loose and eat the army people, and Ripley must lead a team of smugglers that had been helping the project to safety.
What we should understand about Jeunet is that, like Terry Gilliam, he's a futuristic visionary poet rather than a nuts-and-bolts action-film director, although ALIEN: RESURRECTION works well enough on that level. For better and worse, Jeunet is more interested in throwing weird, psychedelic visuals up on the screen than he is in forming tightly constructed narratives. This isn't to say that his movies are plotless, but rather that they obey their own logic the way nightmares do. That's why the spaceship's cooling tanks open up directly on to the kitchen - the water from the tanks floods the kitchen and creates a dreamy but terrifying De Palma-esque underwater chase. So who cares if it's architecturally implausible? Jeunet's visions also have their own poker-faced sense of play, like the cube of whiskey or the death of Gen. Perez (Dan Hedaya), which references the villain's death in DELICATESSEN.
Screenwriter Joss Whedon shares Jeunet's taste for gallows humor, but that's about it. With this film, TOY STORY, his uncredited work on SPEED, and the movie and TV versions of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, Joss Whedon is now one of Hollywood's top screenwriters. Of course, we said that about another promising Hollywood black comedy writer, Daniel Waters (HEATHERS, BATMAN RETURNS), and he's disappeared. Whedon and Jeunet are a strange pair, and it's too bad that the collaboration doesn't find either of them at their very best. Jeunet resorts to a few cheap tricks like the old it's-not-sex-it's-only-a-foot-massage gag. His willingness to let things go unaccounted for leads to miscalculations like Call's reappearance after being shot. How she survives the shooting is explained, but her materialization on the other side of a locked door stretches credibility too far. Whedon, for his part, is cut off from the pop-culture references that make "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" such fun to watch. He comes up with a few clunkers like "No human being is that humane," but the script has many more zesty lines, most of them well served by Ron Perlman as Johner, the crew's muscleman and jokester ("I'm not a mechanic. I just hurt people, mostly," he snaps).
Nevertheless, Whedon creates an interesting character in Call that holds out great potential for the series's promised fifth installment, whenever that may be. She turns out to be hiding her identity as one of a line of defective androids recalled for its problems with authority. Call is a technological freak whose mere existence renders her an outlaw. That shapes her agenda; she knows about the government's illegal research and means to single-handedly sabotage it. Her anger, though, isn't only directed at the authorities. She also hates herself, like some minorities who encounter such widespread prejudice among larger society that they internalize it and see themselves as deviants ("Look at me, I'm disgusting," says Call). Except for Ripley and the wheelchair-bound Vriess, the other characters react with amused condescension when they discover Call's secret. "Can't believe I almost fucked her," sneers Johner, and you can't help but feel his reaction would be similar had she turned out to be a lesbian (her situation strongly resembles that of some closeted homosexuals).
Having given Call such a background, it's puzzling that Whedon can't think of anything interesting to have happen to her. It's suggested (mainly by the actresses) that Ripley's show of toughness has directed Call's energy toward more constructive ends. It's an intriguing idea for a feminist action flick, but Jeunet's imagination doesn't run that way, and the movie never gets more specific on this point. As one of the few Hollywood actresses who can project genuine self-loathing, Winona Ryder's certainly the right choice to play Call. She's strong in support, which is hardly surprising, but given the lack of a character arc and the actress's near-impeccable taste in roles, I have to conclude that she picked this one less for the scripted part itself than for its future possibilities. We can only hope there will be a fifth film to explore them.
No, ALIEN: RESURRECTION is all Sigourney Weaver's show, and she gives the performance of her career. Ripley was human in the three earlier installments, but Weaver's now playing a being that's part alien. She responds by raising her alertness to a stratospheric level. She's coiled, like a lioness on the hunt. She seems to be hearing frequencies nobody else can hear, and her brain and muscles work in startling sync. At first she's slightly taken aback by her new powers, but she comes to revel in the fact that she's now like Michael Jordan amid a grade-school basketball team. Maturity has given Weaver the ability to command situations and scenes effortlessly, and nowhere else has this quality suited her better. Even when Ripley's human emotions break down her composure, she retains her queenly dignity; she recognizes the deformed Ripley clone on the operating table, and we see a strong woman whose sense of self has been profoundly violated. This performance is unlike anything Weaver has ever done, and she's glorious. So powerful is her presence that it holds together a movie that would otherwise be a huge, sticky mess. Jeunet has his visions to pursue, and he makes ALIEN: RESURRECTION as big and noisy as you would expect, but Weaver stays calm even as her electricity fills the screen, and she carries the day.
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