ALIEN RESURRECTION (20th Century Fox) Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, Dan Hedaya, J. E. Freeman, Brad Dourif, Michael Wincott. Screenplay: Joss Whedon. Producers: Bill Badalato, Gordon Carroll, David Giler and Walter Hill. Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet. MPAA Rating: R (violence, gore, profanity, brief nudity) Running Time: 109 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
I'm sure that someone could -- and will -- come up with an explanation for all the pseudo-science involved in the premise for ALIEN RESURRECTION. I'm sure there is some reason to accept why the cloning of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), apparently dead at the end of 1992's ALIEN3, allowed Evil Military Scientists to produce an alien queen. I'm sure there is some reason why that same cloning process turned Ripley into a human/alien hybrid with memories of her previous life. I'm sure there's some reason why the same alien queen which had been producing eggs could suddenly become viviparous. I'm sure there is some reason why I should be able to yank "willing suspension of disbelief" from the jaws of "oh, _please_."
The thing is, ALIEN RESURRECTION didn't give me much reason to care about what those reasons might be. Screenwriter Joss Whedon spends plenty of time on the particulars of the situation -- the aforementioned Evil Military Scientists and their unholy experiments, a close-knit band of space pirates delivering cryogenically frozen hosts for the alien eggs, a mysterious woman (Winona Ryder) with a secret -- without realizing that we're really here to watch Ripley battle aliens. And that would be the same Ripley who became an action icon in three previous films, not the vaguely sinister approximation served up here. All the effort to make Ripley's return "realistic" still adds up to a cargo hold full of question marks and an emotional vacuum at the film's center. Call me crazy, but if a writer's going to push the limits of credulity, I'd prefer him to say, "ALIEN3 was just a dream. Now here's Ripley, here's some aliens, here's a space ship...go!"
And go they eventually do, in some wild and truly bizarre set pieces. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (DELICATESSEN, CITY OF LOST CHILDREN) has a genuine visual flair which inspires some sharp sequences, notably an underwater escape for our protagonists which leads into an alien trap. Unfortunately, he devotes most of his creative energy to coming up with new and innovative ways for the aliens to treat the heads of their victims like unsightly facial blemishes. ALIEN RESURRECTION is frequently a bath of viscera, a collection of graphic deaths rendered in glorious, gratuitous detail.
It all contributes to the impression that ALIEN RESURRECTION is a "moment" film -- a bunch of neat ideas for individual scenes so impersonally rendered that they never add up to a coherent narrative. As a film, it's never boring, featuring a typically whacked-out performance by Brad Dourif as one of the scientists, a clever instance of alien teamwork and self-sacrifice, and a potent encounter between Ripley and a laboratory full of abominations. It's also never compelling in a way we should expect when a character has this much cinematic history. By the time its climactic confrontation rolls around -- involving a creature resembling the evil doppleganger of the Pillsbury Doughboy -- ALIEN RESURRECTION has become flat-out ridiculous, a big violent joke at the expense of viewers expecting a real story about Ellen Ripley. I can't see most fans of the series walking away from this experience satisfied. More likely, the'll walk away muttering, "oh, _please_."
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Ripleys, believe it or not: 5.
Visit Scott Renshaw's MoviePage http://www.inconnect.com/~renshaw/ *** Subscribe to receive new reviews directly by email! See the MoviePage for details, or reply to this message with subject line "Subscribe".
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews