ALIEN: RESURRECTION ** (out of four) a review by Bill Chambers (More? Visit Film Freak Central. http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/7504 Laugh at me.)
starring Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, J.E. Freeman written by Joss Whedon directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
The title has a double meaning. In this fourth installment of the series, not only do producers David Giler and Walter Hill revive their beloved Ellen Ripley (Weaver), who met her fate last time around, but they attempt to resurrect the franchise itself: the financial unsuccess of Alien3 was thought to have killed it.
You can't keep a good monster down. Unfortunately. What was a wonderful, complete trilogy is now a quadrology that ends with the promise of more, and if this resurrection is any indication, I'm talking about a series in decline.
The premise is this: Ripley is revived through genetic cloning on a military ship. A band of ne'er-do-wells arrive on said ship for a cargo transfer. One of them, Call (Ryder), fears Ripley when they meet, for she is aware that the clone is part-alien. What she is not aware of are the twelve aliens also aboard the vessel-military doctors are trying to teach the monsters good manners. Must I write that the experiment goes awry?
Jeunet, famed French director of `Delicatessan', has tried to combine the spirits of the second and third films. `Resurrection' is artfully made, aesthetically pretty like David Fincher(`Seven')'s part three, and it contains some rousing gun play and chase sequences, as in James Cameron's `Aliens'. But I get the sense that Jeunet's language difference presented great problems in his assessment of the script, which is half-baked and desperately familiar. For example, he casts several colourful-looking people in supporting roles only to hand them the kind of dialogue you'd hear in `Independence Day'. They're unique ducks in the same shooting gallery we've been to three times before. And the alien logic has worn thin-I never did understand which one was laying eggs, or why this was happening since the script went to great pains explaining that the queen now had a womb.
Turn off the sound and one is left with a stunning motion picture, a two hour Romantic painting. The effects are impressive, and there is one dazzling, showstopping setpiece (involving swimming aliens). But great art direction does not equal great filmmaking, and therein lies the problem: the most basic movie element--the screenplay--is still the most important, and `Alien: Resurrection' made me nostalgic for the original trilogy, which is not what a sequel should do. -November 21, 1997
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