They gave it a good try, but "Resurrection" just doesn't work

Rating: 5/10 (6 May 2007)

Part of the problem with Alien: Resurrection may be the sheer amount of time that has passed between the first one and this one, and the fact the Alien 3 was such a depressing downer. 20 years is a long time for a movie franchise, and there was no real reason to make another sequel; that they did it anyway betrays the audience's love and respect for the first two movies.
"Alien: Resurrection" probably looked good on paper: Get a good European director with great credentials (the guy who did "City Of Lost Children") who might bring a fresh sensibility to the franchise and take it in a new direction; get Sigourney Weaver to reprise her role as Ripley; get some excellent character actors to back her up (Brad Dourif, Ron Perlman and Micheal Wincott are always interesting to watch no matter what they are doing), and give the characters lots of snark and dry gallows humor to keep the viewer happy between action scenes. But somehow the whole came out less than the sum of its parts
I've watched this movie on cable a few times in the last few years, trying figure what went wrong. My conclusion: I think what screws things up is the pacing, the inability of the screenplay that to live up to the idea of a centuries long time lapse, and the portrayal of both the evil Corporation and the military as dim-witted, fumble fingered clods.
Two whole centuries have supposedly passed since the last "Alien", but apparently the only advances in technology since that movie have been in cloning. (Compare the differences in military technology and air travel between 1797 and 1997). That's a plain failure of imagination. And the Corporation scientists work for 200 years to be able to recreate Ripley and her alien egg, but once they have the aliens they are able to hold them for less than 24 hours before their security measure fail and the aliens infest the ship. That's a failure of respect for the shadowy figures who've been driving this plot's backstory for 20 years. And meanwhile the military has apparently degenerated from hard-core veteran Colonial Marines to a a bunch of wimps who can't handle a bunch of free lance traders on their home ground - and who cut and run the instant there is a problem on their space station. This is completely unlike Alien 1,2 and 3 where the Corporation goons are ruthless and powerful and oppressive in its power, and the military personnel are hard-nosed and ruthless xeno-killers who are simply outmatched. That's a failure of nerve, to have to portray the bad guys and soldiers as simps and wimps.
IMO. these failures drain the movie of most of its potential gravitas. Instead of being horrified and angered by the sheer ruthlessness and sliminess of the "suits" who throw away the human lives for a buck, or dismayed and frightened by the way tough veterans of dozens of campaigns were summarily dispatched, I was angered and irritated by their stupidity and thoughtlessness.
In the movie's favor: the rag-tag crew of the Betty are fun to watch in action, and I think the screenwriter is at his best portraying their interaction with each other and Ripley, both before and after the crisis breaks out. Winona Ryder is (surprisingly) the least interesting actor here (not entirely her fault, given the nature of the character), but it was good to see her on-screen again, even in a place holder role like this one.
The other problem is the visuals. The movie looked pretty good, but it just didn't have the punch and grandeur of the previous installments; it's as if the scale was simply too small. (Although Alien was pretty claustrophobic in spots, the "Nostromo" seemed to go on for miles). Even though I didn't care for Fincher's oppressive visuals on Alien 3, they were at least as striking and memorable as Scott and Cameron's visions in 1 and 2...but visually, A:R is just another science fiction movie.
At some point during the making of "A:R", I am sure that the director and the producer knew that they had lost the chance to make a great movie in the labyrinth of collaboration and production choices that every movie entails. So they went ahead and put out a flawed one and hoped that no one would notice. Well, everyone noticed, and I'm pretty sure that there won't be another "Alien". It's probably just as well.