The weakest chapter of the saga.

Rating: 3/10 (14 August 2005)

Alien : Ressurrection (1997) by Alan Sampaio
* out of ****
This movie is deadly awful. First, the worst thing they could have ever done: to resurrect Ripley. Ripley's dead, man! Why resurrect her only to make another movie? Money, anyone? Great possibility. At least, they could have cloned her, but stay with her personality of the past, the great, powerful, kick-ass Lt. Ellen Ripley. But they changed the character completely! Now Ripley's more humorous, smiling all the time, giving us an idea that she's enjoying what's happening around her. And to kill an alien is as funny as it is to kill a monster in a video game for her. Bad consequences? The movie lost all the true alien elements from the previous movies: horror, suspense, fear emanating from the characters, all the essence of the alien movies has gone. And even Alien³ was too, an awful chapter in the quadrilogy, at least, Ripley still has Sigourney Weaver's great performance on her side. Weaver really did a horrible job, playing Ripley in Alien : Ressurrection, and that's a shame and at the same time, funny, since she was nominated for best actress in a leading role for Aliens (1986). And there's still people who think that this movie is "not great as the others, but still good". I don't believe it. This movie sucks in every way.
I haven't watched other Jean-Pierre Jeunet movies yet. But if you consider this one, the others must be a disaster. (Or maybe not, because in every artist, there are high and low points). But to insert humor elements in a horror/science fiction saga must have been the idea of a god! Ron Pearlman plays Johner, one of the few great characters in the movie. His presence on screen would be much better, had the movie sustained horror and dark elements from the previous movies. His performance is great, but why kill a spider with a gun and kiss Vriess in the mouth? Must be that god-idea thing. The rest of the cast includes Winona Ryder, Michael Wincott, Gary Dourdan, Brad Dourif and some others. They make a very good list of great actors, but some roles in this movie are pathetic! The action of the movie is quite good, but with no horror elements, like the ones we see in Aliens. When the creatures sneak in the complex right at the end of the movie, when all lights go out and all we see is a red light, we notice how the characters are frightened. They shoot, while at the same time shouting like they'd really die right there. But in A:R, it seems fun to kill aliens. I wonder why they didn't do that Luke Skywalker thing in Episode IV, when Luke and Han are escaping from the death star and fighting some ships in outer space: "Ha ha! I got them!"
The story might be good, but is completely unnecessary and added nothing to the saga. Breed more aliens using human victims. Then they escape, and... let's hunt some buggies! And, also, the special edition DVD added nothing interesting and I even dare say that it's become even worse than the original version. That beginning credits where the title appears? What the hell was that bug, being squashed by that guy? And the ending was much worse than the original. The dialog's is almost the same, but this time, Ripley and Call actually land on earth. I preferred much more the original where we only see the skies from a high height.
I really do hope they don't make another alien movie. Because the truly good ones were only the first two.