"I want to slap this movie so hard, Joel."

Rating: Null/10 (23 June 2001)

**SPOILERS AHEAD**
God, what a waste. Where to begin, with a film like this? It strikes me more as a Saturday Night Live skit based on the Alien films, rather than part 4 of the series. The very premise behind Ripley's "resurrection" would make anyone with even high-school level knowledge of biology alternatively cringe or laugh.
Jeunet should not have been placed as director. His style, while visually lovely, is too dramatically lighthearted for this type of film. The comic-relief is badly-timed, jarring, and ill-suited to the "Alien tradition", subverting any emotional depth or suspense. Worse, though, is the pornographic level of violence. Do we really need to see this much gore? Remember how little of it was actually shown in the first two films, and yet how unsettling and effective those sequences were?
I loved seeing Pinon in an English-language film, but he just seems miscast for this type of thing. Hedaya should not have been in this either, only more so. Perlman, while talented in general, is wasted as an unlikable caricature. Weaver is just awful. While somewhat interesting in the beginning, she quickly devolves into playing the role for ironic laughs. I thought Ryder wasn't that bad, actually, but she seems to be here just to bring in more ticket sales.
The "birthing" scene is the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've seen in a Hollywood film in ages. Dourif's delivery is so over-the-top it provokes snickers. The Queen herself looks like she's kicked back in stirrups ("Puuuush!"). And the big reveal, the Newborn, is so absurdly stupid-looking I don't understand how it got past the conceptual stage. The way the thing's killed at the end is equally stupid, not to mention the fact that it's physically impossible and not even barely believable (should have stuck with the farm equipment, Joss).
Alien3 was an object lesson in promising, but failed filmmaking. Alien: Resurrection is simply trash, designed by a corporation to make money off of consumers who sadly don't know any better.