Well, okay then...

Rating: 8/10 (1 September 2006)

*Sigh*... and here is where I ruin all of the other reviews I've written, all of any objective respectability, and imagined audience I probably didn't have in the first place.
I liked it. A lot. In fact I think it's the best film in the series.
Outrage! Horror! How could he say that when he says Alien 3 is terrible! I can say it because this movie is fun, it's very visually amazing, and best of all, it's complete. Joss Whedon has done an excellent job with this, something most people didn't notice probably because they were too distracted by Winona Ryder's terrible acting and the huge change in Ripley's character, along with a good ol' fashioned distrust of modern sequels, to notice that he has tied together some open threads that have existed basically from the very beginning.
The thing I want to remark upon, that is, stress very importantly, is that Ripley's life throughout the Alien films is very horrible. It's an obvious assessment, but so obvious it's not often noted. She literally exists, by this film, to fight the aliens... there's almost no other purpose to her life. In fact her past is utterly removed at this point. She and the aliens have become a continuing conflict of good and evil, and it's gone so far that she's literally become a part of the alien world. So Whedon actually makes her an alien and the aliens a part of her. It's brilliant, really.
Secondly, I think this film is a lot of fun. Ron Perlman and Dominique Pinon, Jeunet regulars, make wonderful supporting characters to Sigourney Weaver's new interpretation of the cynically stuck Ripley, the Ripley who went from androgynous to motherly to nihilist to an almost perfect conglomeration of all three in this last film. Other supporting actors are very well-placed too, such as the guy from The Crow and Dan Hedaya.
Jeunet's visual activity is in full force here as well. I have to laugh and admit that it's completely over the top... and yet with the excellent cast it makes it more fun than the action bonanza of the second and more interesting than the brooding nihilism of the third. There's no attempt to be the first one with psychological horror. There's no attempt to be the second one with masses of aliens everywhere. There's just a defining compromise: a dozen of them. And mystery as to what their motivations, at this point, really are.
There's a lot that needn't be in here, too much. It's too modern, the alien/human hybrid at the end is pretty ridiculous (though I still think a good continuation of what has been happening between Ripley and the aliens), too much modern fear of cloning, and too many characters trying to be "bad-ass". I can understand entirely why people hate this movie so. But I still think it's really good.
It also has the perfect ending to the series. Ripley returns to Earth, and it's at this point that it should be noted: we have never seen Earth throughout all of the movies, and yet the whole reason why Ripley seems to exist is to protect it. It's transcendent, it's remarkable, and it's a beautiful scene. Remember that this is four hundred years and four stases since Ripley left Earth merely as a cargo carrier. She's been through a lot, and now look what she's become... This is why I think this is a really good movie.
Bring on the neggies. I guess I deserve it.
--PolarisDiB