Alien Resurrection is completely different from the first three movies, and I mean that in a bad way.

Rating: 3/10 (3 May 2008)

200 years after Ripley's suicidal death in Alien 3, she is back in Alien Resurrection. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) has successfully been cloned, after 7 clones gone wrong, with the alien queen inside her by scientists (Brad Dourif, J.E. Freeman) on the ship Auriga. Ripley has alien DNA in her blood and seems to take on a few alien characteristics. The ship researches the queen and uses her eggs to facehug kidnapped people, for the purpose of studying the aliens that pop out of them. Soon a group of smugglers led by the tough Elgin (Michael Wincott), Johner (Ron Perlman), Call (Winona Ryder), and two or three others, board the Auriga to collect owed money. However the aliens soon escape and run rampant all over the ship, just as the smugglers begin pulling guns on the crew. Almost everyone on the ship has been killed by the aliens. And when the smugglers find out the ship is automatically headed back to Earth, they band together with Ripley, a scientist, soldier, and a man who has an alien in his chest. They have to find a way to stop the ship before it lands on Earth, and the aliens infest home planet.
Alien and Aliens are sci-fi horror classics. Alien 3 is much less favored, but it's still one of my favorites. However I can't deny that Alien 3 is way better than the awful 4th Alien Resurrection. Even the new Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem is better than this movie. Alien Resurrection contains dangerously low character development, mostly bad acting, a terrible script, and a completely different style from the first three films. The first three Aliens were very dimly lit to the point where it was hard to see the whole creature. That effect really added to their mystique. However Alien Resurrection leaves leaves nothing to be wondered about, since it is disappointingly brightly lit up. The bright atmosphere felt all wrong because the aliens don't really belong in the light, they belong in the dark. We can see the whole entire alien in their slimy brilliance, and there are actually a few good scenes with them. The scene where they escape from their containment by killing one of their own, and letting his blood burn through the floor creating an exit. This is one hell of a scene and most definitely the best part of the whole movie. It shows that the aliens may seem like mindless killers, but they are actually kind of intelligent. Other than the terrible CGI action scenes (where the aliens seem out of place), the aliens actually look great. In fact the close-up shots of them are fantastic, and really make them look hugely threatening and creepy. But then we get extremely Hollywood-style action scenes such as when the aliens attack underwater. It's scenes like this one that even further ruined the movie and the creatures.
Once you get past the great looking aliens, you realize how stupid and shallow the whole movie really is. The band of smugglers are basically one-dimensional (save for Winona Ryder), as are the scientists, soldiers, and pretty much everyone else who shows up on screen. The acting is poor but what can you expect, the actors were given terrible material to work with. Upsettingly Sigourney Weaver is not good in this movie either, but then again she is just like the rest of the actors, her dialogue and character are awful. I think it was really stupid to bring her back into the series. She killed herself...that should have been final enough! They could have done an Alien movie without Ripley, but I guess since Weaver decided to come back the filmmakers just said "Let's find the most preposterous way to bring back Ripley from her suicidal grave. I got an idea, she can be an alien/human clone with no personality. Alright high fives all around!" These terrible human characters are housed by an absurd, shoddy plot that makes absolutely no sense. Ripley apparently has alien features within her, but this is barely mentioned or played on till the end. There is also a side-plot that the scientists are breeding aliens through kidnapped civilians, but it's really only mentioned once or twice. These extra little side-plots don't really matter to the story once the crappy action cranks up. It doesn't even make sense how all the aliens got loose. We only see two aliens escape their cell, but how do ten more get out? This is an enormous plot hole that made me laugh at how stupid the writers must be. There is another scene that also makes zero sense, and that is when the characters swim away from an alien underwater. They break through a cocoon covering an opening to the surface, and when they get through they realize they are surrounded by eggs hatching facehuggers. One of them yells "They set a trap! It's an ambush!". We find out at the end that the queen never moved from her cell, and if that's so then how the hell did all those hundreds of eggs get there for this "ambush". And even if this was plausible, which it's not, why would the aliens need to put all those eggs there? They already wiped out pretty much the whole ship's crew.
Alien Resurrection is a pretty awful film. Its story, characters, and even its action are all extremely shallow. Just about every single element in this third sequel barely makes any comprehensible sense. The only good thing were the close-ups of the aliens, they looked very good here. But everything else about them felt misplaced in this action flick. And don't even get me started on the whole newborn plot at the end. That was just painful to look at and think of. I give Alien Resurrection a 1 out of 4, just ignore it and go watch the first three.