As a standalone, fun & surprising, as a part of the ALIEN legacy, kind of silly!!!

Rating: 4/10 (22 December 2014)

PLEASE, BE SMART. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THIS FILM AND DON'T WANT SPOILERS, DON'T READ THIS REVIEW!!!!!!!!!
ALIEN: scifi, drama, horror, with a first-rate cast and very spare dry comic relief. ALIENS: scifi,action, horror, with a VERY likable cast, and some fitting comic hysteria from Bill Paxton. ALIEN 3: scifi, drama, horror, a very gifted first time director, and again, very spare comedy, almost no comedy at all, and acting wise, surprising for all of its other disappointments.
ALIEN: RESURRECTION...hmmmm...as a standalone movie, this is kind of a treat as a scifi, horror, camp-comedy. Some pluses: Like ALIENS, it has a lot of action and gunplay, and like ALIENS, it has human villains and hordes of vicious aliens. And I LOVE John Frizzell's score. Completely awesome, evoking horror and suspense. The only score I like better is Jerry Goldsmith's from ALIEN. The cast is pretty good, though I thought a few characters were pointless.
As a member of the ALIEN franchise...perhaps not so much. Minuses: I hated Michael Wincott's sleazy and uninteresting Elgyn and was happy to see him offed early. Kim Flowers' Hillard was pointless as well. Ron Perlman's Johner was insufferable in his character and dialogue: "So Ripley, I heard you, like, ran into these things before...So, like, what did you do?" Winona Ryder. As with Ash, there is a big "reveal" scene with Call. But she absolutely has no place in this kind of film. Why would an android complain about being "disgusting"? Just no.
Pluses: I liked Dominique Pinon's Vriess most of the time. I liked Gary Dourdan's Christie, but he was one character whose death was not only too damn early in the film, but totally ridiculous. Was it a suicide to save Vriess' life? Or did an alien grab him once he hit the water and take him under and kill him? Hitting the water from a ladder is not instant death, but the way Vriess was wailing, "Don't do it, Christie!" you would swear it was!
More pluses: Brad Douriff played the 2nd most evil scientist I have ever seen in history. J. E. Freeman narrowly exceeds him. This movie is a great scifi illustration of pure instinct vs. pure evil, and Wren is one evil bird. I have always seen the alien xenomorphs as instinctual creatures, not evil ones. Like lions, tigers and bears, they will kill you, but it's not because they are evil, it's because that is what they are hardwired to do, by God, by nature, by evolution, or whatever. Douriff, Freeman and their cronies? Evil as hell. The unholy glee with which these people watch the facehuggers attacking a crew up KIDNAPPED men is very sickening. So, see below...
Big minus: It was bad enough to realize the scientists are evil, no doubt seeking to build an alien army that would strike fear in the hearts of anyone opposing some fascist government somewhere. For this same reason, it was hard to really empathize with any of the pirate crew. The humans are the more evil of the villains.
Big plus: The aliens are only animals...at least until now. Sigourney Weaver delivers again, though I'm not sure why anyone felt this film had to be made. Maybe because ALIEN 3 was so dark and ultimately depressing.
And most certainly, it's preposterous to think the evil scientists could clone an ALIEN queen, as well as a Ripley, but she is great fun nevertheless. Anyway, this ain't the Ripley who died. In their evil experiment, the scientists created a Ripley who has lots and lots of alien DNA in her. In short, she is an alien who is physically a lot more strong, and mentally, a lot less kind-hearted, than her deceased human ancestor. She has just enough of the real Ripley in her to almost remember Newt, but otherwise, she grins instead of frowning when the evil scientists horribly overestimate their ability to "tame" and to "train" the aliens, and horribly underestimate the aliens' endless capacity for ingenuity. Because these aliens are also descendants of a human being, Ripley, they are "smarter," and not above killing one of their own and using it as a means of escaping their cells. Of course, the alien in ALIEN and the aliens in ALIENS were descended from humans as well.
Ripley 8 is like the aliens, half innocent predatory animal, half intelligent and kind of evil human. She only begins to realize how awful those scientists are when she meets her seven "sisters" in the medical lab, how they heartlessly keep one clone alive with tubes and machines. Ripley 8 only begins to become our hero yet again when she decides she must not let her "children" live to destroy everyone on pitiful earth, which looks like it's been thru a few nuclear holocausts lately.
I see I am really Over-analyzing this movie. It's great to see the evil Wren get his ultimate reward from one of his victims. It's also great to see the other evil scientists end up in cocoons, but wait! The Queen that they created along with Ripley 8, the OTHER mama to the fearsome xenomorphs evolves from having an insect reproductive system to a human one! No more egg-laying!!! What?! Yes, Queenie now has a uterus!!! She's having another baby!!! What a busy Mom!!! And the only thing freakier than the Newborn itself is Douriff's delirious and hilarious verbal cooing, "Beautiful, beautiful little baby!!!" That newborn is the stuff of night and daymares, be warned!!! Strangely enough, many, including myself, feel a little sad (as well as VERY repulsed) by the newborn's death sequence.
4 out of 10 .