[film] "Alien Resurrection" A Postview, copyright 1998 p-m agapow
It's 200 years later and they still haven't fixed the poor lighting and dripping problems aboard starships. The tireless alien-hunting Ripley awakes on a military research vessel to find that she's not dead, just cloned. But there are some strange fish splashing about in her gene pool, and when the (also resurrected) aliens run amok, she falls in with a band of amoral pirates and escape while engaging in many widely framed metaphors for motherhood and birth.
A fundamental law of Hong Kong movies and Star Trek is that death is tragic but only a minor inconvenience. It looks as though that rule will now have to be extended to the Alien franchise, with La Sigourney being decanted from a two centuries old blood sample. But even given modern biotechnology, is there any energy in the fun loving hijinks of everyone's favourite polymorphic lifeform? That's a more complex question, complicated by the poor reception of its predecessor (Alien^3) and the knives being sharpened for an expected failure.
While incompletely realised, "Resurrection" is quite good. It harkens back to the flavour of the first film, a Victorian gothic horror novel set in space, a shifty psychological thriller. (As an SF or horror film, the second installment "Aliens" was a good blockbuster action picture.) The characters and story exist in a moral vacuum with extra stress contributed by their unknown allegiances. The Ripley clone gives the impression that at any moment she may back the alien side, the pirates (who guiltlessly hijack cryofreezed bodies for experiments) are motivated by little but self-interest.
French director Jeunet (here bereft of his other half, Caro, from "City of Lost Children" and "Delicatessen") brings a worldly European air to the Alien franchise, with the occasional surreal touch. This is best exemplified by the choice of actors, from the decidedly non-glamourous Ron Perlman as a chauvinist tough guy to the even less glamourous Dominique Pinon as a grungy crippled mechanic. (Both are Jeunet and Caro alumni.) Weaver is fabulous as the Ripley clone, with an almost wolfish quality to her. Tired of other people's mistakes, almost too tired to live there's an ineffable dangerousness to her character. Winona Ryder as a guilt-stricken pirate fares less well: as the character with the most depth after Ripley her performance is not as good as hoped but better than expected. (It's back to generation-X dramas for you, dearie.) The cast spark off each other in some snappy dialogue. ("Must be a chick thing," sneers Perlman after La Sigourney goes bananas with an incinerator.) Throw in a few well-framed action pieces - there's a nice underwater chase scene that segues into an equally nice fight on a ladder - and you've got not a bad little picture. The whole motherhood analogy schtick from "Aliens" is here revved up to the nth degree, it not being so much a subtext as a supertext. If Ripley ever gets to a shrink, I can see the two of them writing books and going onto talk shows for years. ("On Ricki Lake today: My child surrogate died and then my new child surrogate destroyed a military base. Now make me over!")
But "little" may be the problem. To convince the sceptics, "Resurrection" has got to go the hard yards and make itself stand out. Although it wisely doesn't try to outdo the previous entries, it also doesn't try to be enough of its own thing. The evil corporation has here been replaced by the evil government. (Who, hilariously, wish to use the aliens for "urban pacification". Drop one of them aliens onto the West Bank and let's see how long it lasts.) For all the quirkiness of the characters, there really isn't enough time for each to develop and so several die in that uncomfortable period between when you can recognise them but before you know their name. While there are some pleasing intelligent points to the story - "The aliens are loose! Evacuate the ship!" - there are plot stupidities to match - "Hey, a hole in the deck made by acid! I wonder if I stick my head down there if it get torn off?".
In summary, it's a pleasing addition to the series that while not reaching quite as high as intended, at least manages to hold itself with pride. If there must be another entry, let's hope it continues and extends the good work. [***/interesting] and "A Better Tomorrow 3" on the Sid and Nancy scale.
"Alien Resurrection"
Released 1997.
Starring Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Dan Hedaya,
Dominique Pinon.
------ paul-michael agapow (agapow@computer.org), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse "There is no adventure, there is no romance, there is only trouble and desire."
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