Customer Reviews

Alien Resurrection

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(53)
3 star:		(49)
2 star:		(42)
1 star:		(72)

 

 

First two Alien movies were great. The third was pushing it. And a Fourth?? Almost as if they knew that it wasn't gonna work, so they delibrately brought in Wynona Ryder to add more selling power next to an aging Sigourney Weaver. Still, ain't gonna cut it.

1997's fourth installment in the "Aliens" movie franchise is my least favorite of the bunch for many reasons even though it also has it's own merits. In all honesty, while there's plenty of things to enjoy, this movie is missing something that made the first two movies so incredible and even the third one which has it's own flaws of it's own.

This movie takes place 200 years after the events of "Alien 3". Ellen Ripley's DNA has been successfully recovered and a mix of Ripley and the alien's DNA have been successfully cloned and now Ripley's 'descendant', actually a clone of her has been brought to life to wage her final battle against the predatory aliens that are now approaching the planet Earth. The 'new' Ripley has Alien DNA within her that makes her capable of 'caring' for the alien creatures. A band of vicious smugglers however comes on board to steal the Alien DNA only to discover that the new breed of aliens is more dangerous than any other ever before and now the aliens are hunting both 'Ripley' and the smugglers and now they must destroy the alien and prevent them from getting to Earth and also try to make it home alive.

This movie cuts both ways for me. While certainly not a bad movie overall, "Alien Resurrection" suffers the most from serious flaws more than any of the previous "Alien" movies. While the movie is enjoyable for its special effects and awesome action sequences, I for one agree with many that this was almost not even necessary to be made like this especially since the 1992 third entry was where it should've ended. A lot scenes are pretty gross to look at especially the ones where 'Ripley' tries to 'calm' down the alien creatures or even tries to act like some 'mother' figure to them. I for one feel that this movie is more of like some 'alternate timeline' movie spin-off of some sort that almost feels completely detached from the previous three and that it's almost like thrown together leftovers from them as well.

The cast is hit and miss for me. Sigourney Weaver as the 'new' Ellen Ripley is fantastic as usual and is the only one in my opinion who really carries this movie all the way through. Her character is still very good although a step or two down from the previous movies. The rest of the cast however really don't fare anywhere near as good. Winona Ryder really drops the ball on this one and the character she plays is boring and without character or personality even though she isn't as she is thought to be. The male cast comes off being excessively dry and unconvincing and one in particular is almost enough to tick you off at his attitude towards Ryder's character in this movie. The directing by Jean-Pierre Jeunet is really good and this combined with Siguorney Weaver's acting as usual really do a lot to make this flawed movie a good movie worth watching.

The movie has its merits though. The special effects are top-rate and the movie has a really suspenseful tone but it starts getting to the point that the formula has been a bit tried since it has already been done three times already. The newest species of alien is really scary and but the face and head look almost like a human skull or even a deformed Freddy Krueger. The movie is saved by a really awesome but gruesome ending which I'm not going to mention out of fear of spoiling it. The ending alone saves this movie along with the special effects. While many movie series seam to suffer from a pattern called the "Fourth Installment Syndrome/Curse" or whatever you call it with examples like "Batman and Robin" or "Jaws: The Revenge", "Alien Resurrection" avoids a lot of this with great special effects and awesome sequences. For a 'Part 4' movie, this really fares so well for a fourth installment and maintains some freshness even if the cracks in the franchise start showing through.

The "Director's Cut" edition of "Alien Resurrection" does little to improve this movie and is only like ten minutes longer than the original and of the revamped versions of all of the "Alien" movies, "Alien Resurrection" benefits the least out of them all and the result is disappointing. The movie also has a new intro to it. The second disc like the other films on their newest re-issues has lots of great extras with 'making of', commentaries, and lots of cool Easter eggs. There are plenty of extras in this movie that are worth looking at though and the DVD is really excellent. The picture quality was good to begin with but this "Collector's Edition" really improves the picture quality and the sound quality is amazing to the point that if you have surround audio speakers or can connect your TV to the stereo speakers, then it will feel almost like you're back at the big screen again! The final result for me is that this gets a rating that rounds off to 3 solid stars but at the same time, this movie while good on its own, just never can find it's own place against the shadows of it's predecessors and is ultimately a movie that is more for the die-hard Alien audiences.

Looking back on it now, I have to say that despite the weaknesses especially on the last two parts in the series, "Aliens" stands as one of the best sci-fi/horror/action movie franchises of all time and that Sigourney Weaver may be the most remembered by her roles in all of them.

Okay, one of these face-grabber things attaches itself to you, knocks you out, shoves a tube down your throat and drops an embryo. Soon, the face-grabber falls off and you revive. You walk around just fine for a few days, then the embryo (somewhat larger) bursts out of your stomach, which kills you, and the embryo scoots and squeals away to kill everyone else on your spaceship or planet or whatever.

My question, Officer Ripley, is: If you only serve as a temporary host for an embryo, which originates, grows and bursts out as a completely separate organism, then what makes anyone think that cloning YOU will ALSO produce one of the parasite organisms?

I once asked Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee if she ever felt guilty about receiving automatic salary increases (unless congress acts to avoid them), and she just looked at me with a blank stare. I would expect that same sort of reaction from the screenwriter who came up with THIS premise.

Alien Resurrection,while not as good as Alien and Aliens,is better than
Alien 3.true,it is fairly light in tone,and not a lot of
suspense.however it has a very eclectic group of characters.Ripley is
back.there is some humour in this series,much more than the other Alien
films.there is lots of action,but less gore than Alien 3.there are also
some surprising revelations in this one.it is not as predictable as
Alien 3.the aliens have undergone a transformation in this movie,as
they have in each film in the series.they have a capability which was
not explored in the original 3.there was talk at one time of a fourth
sequel,but let's hope they leave the series as is--on a high note. 4/5

I'm inspired to write a review because the debate about the quality of the third and fourth Alien installments is quite rabid. My recommendation, first of all, is to watch Alien3 again. Better yet, get the new DVD and watch both versions. It seems that some people can't understand how an Alien movie could be so gloomy and pessimistic... which is really a bizarre opinion. IT IS AN ALIEN MOVIE, NOT 'EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND.'

With that said, unlike many other folks who hold Fincher's film in high esteem, I don't hate Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien Resurrection. The visuals are spectacular. The environments are very well done, very spooky. In my opinion, this is where Aliens, under action guru Jim Cameron, lacked. Though HR Giger was not involved with this project, Jeunet has an appreciation of his art, as demonstrated in the "viper pit" scene.

The performances are well executed, even Winona Ryder, whom I love to hate. Resurrection, though last on my list as far as the Alien movies, is not a bad film. It's certainly a step up from most of the movies out there today.

Now to the bad: I suspect that Gillis and Woodruff try too hard to make the Alien their own. Giger did not approve of the new look. The excess slime and the brown colour looks like "s#$*" (his words). It's basically on of Spielberg's Raptors, but with a phallic head.

Jeunet's odd sense of humour is out of place in an Alien movie, in my opinion. Then again, I say this as someone who loved the doom and gloom of Alien3.

While the idea of greedy corporates cloning Ripley for their own purposes does make for an interesting story, I suspect that it reflects how the greedy suits at Fox want to cash in on this series as much as possible! Though, thankfully, with somewhat artistically respectable results.

Best to worst in my view: Alien, Alien3, Aliens, Alien Resurrection. But the bottom of the barrel here is still better than most of what's playing right now.

This almost doesn't even qualify as an Alien movie and feels more like some spin-off of the franchise and really ruins the power of the 1992 third Alien movie. Why would anyone want to clone Ripley and an alien anyway? The acting, even by Weaver is weak and this movie's plot is laughable! What a sad ending to a great movie series. It should've ended with Alien 3!!!!! End of story!

Some people think that "Alien 3" is the worst movie in the series. Others think that "Alien Resurrection" is the worst. I think that "Resurrection" is slightly better than "Alien 3", but I also think that we all agree that both "Resurrection" and "Alien 3" aren't even close to the level of excellency of the first two movies.

Anyway, "Alien Resurrection" does have interesting things: the atmosphere is dark and it's very stylish. Finally we can see a pretty face in the series, Winona Ryder plays a supporting role in this movie. Also, "Resurrection" has scenes packed with bullets, explosions and action.

However, "Alien Resurrection" also has low points. Yes, Winona appears here, but her acting talent is kinda wasted. Some plot twists feel very forced, and the movie has its share of grotesque and pointless scenes. But all those things are OK, however, the thing that I can't forgive as a fan of the series is the Alien / human creature, that thing is so grotesque and infamous that the damn thing makes that the final scenes look like an ultra-cheap horror movie.

In the final countdown "Alien Resurrection" still is good enough to score a solid 3 stars rating in my scale, but to be honest I would recommend you only the first two movies, "Alien" and "Aliens".

As a sequel to the Alien trilogy, the general consensus is that 'Alien Resurrection' scraps the bottom of the barrel. It goes for melodramatic impact with predictable deaths and corny action movie one-liners. A massive setback for a highly acclaimed sequence of films but not a bad adaption of a comic book series. Indeed the premise behind 'Resurrection' seems to have been lifted mostly from the Dark Horse comic's 'Alien' stories. The characters are richly 2-dimensional. Bad acting? When you're playing a comic-book character, there's no need to wander through the depths of human emotion, just play it as it is on the page. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's style in his French language films do portray a highly animated sense of reality and much of the set designs and action sequences in 'Alien Resurrection' do seem to have been directly influenced by the comic stories. The previous films worked hard on displaying an imaginable sci-fi future, where human emotion and interaction still managed to take precedence over technology. In 'Resurrection' we are blasted with endless amounts of explosions and gore, the only tinge of humanity coming from an androyid (ironically played by the rather 'wooden' Winona Ryder).

I would love to see Jeunet tackle the sci-fi genre again, maybe a film where he could harness some of his own vision in the story, as well as in the direction. Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' was a wonderful example of how a highly imaginative director could create his own pseudo-sci-fi world without the cuddly trappings of George Lucas. If you're a sci-fi comic book fan then, 'Alien Resurrection' is definitely one to see.

'Alien' was excellent. 'Aliens' was superb. 'Alien 3' was.. well.. it was okay. At least I found it to be a respectable sequel in its own right. But this... THIS?!!?! Let me just say 'Resurrection' should've been SHELVED AND NEVER HAVE SEEN THE INSIDE OF ANY THEATER!!! This movie sucks on so many levels it's unreal. Bad acting, bad plot, lame, boring, dumb... I still can't believe Sigourney Weaver would go along with such an inane project. Must've been the money, cuz reportedly she got a lot of it to play in this travesty. And what about that freaky 'Mummy Returns' reject of an alien at the end?? LAME!!!

Movie sucked. Stick with the first two definitely, and possibly the third... This one sucks big time.

No stars for this film, it flat out suuuux. It was an embarrasment. No wonder talented screen writer Joss Whedon cried when he saw the finished film. Bad acting, bad costumes, bad set design, rediculous ending, bad CGI. Bad bad bad. The alternate opening and ending on the other version of the film provided here are even worse, a total joke. The film makers should be ashamed of themselves. This film is a total embarrasment.