Ripley's back! Ummm...

Rating: Null/10 (4 March 1999)

The first two are universally renowned classics (Aliens: Special Edition is my favourite) and I have to admit that, like most true fans of the series it seems, I liked Alien 3. Problem is the driving force of the series gets killed at the end of it. What do Fox do? Do they hope they can carry on without her? Do they pretend it was all a dream and hope no-one notices? Do they take the side route of pairing the Aliens off with the Predators? Nope, they do their damnedest to get Ripley back on her feet. In this the film succeeds. As for the rest my opinions are somewhat divided.
As a standalone film about a different alien species A:R would probably have succeeded. The nice, slow, tense build-up was used brilliantly. The Alien escape is very clever. And the underwater sequence borders on genius. It's a good little sci-fi horror which is incredibly stylish and has some clever twists to it.
Unfortunately A:R is not a standalone film. It's part of one of the most successful and influential franchises ever made. As such it has to be compared to the others. This is where it falls down. A:R never escapes the feeling that it's merely a bridge for the next one. Somewhere, I believe, is a truly awe-inspiring Alien script. It's the best of the series, will win awards by the shedload and become a legend in film history. But it's got Ripley in it. Fox scramble to get Ripley back into the series which results in this: a film which just doesn't match up to (or use) the Alien heritage.
The idea of introducing a human element to the Alien world is a nice one. It's also clever to parallel it by introducing an Alien element into the human world with the hybrid Ripley. But by doing this the Aliens lose something. The mystique is gone. They're no longer the most ruthless killers in known space. They no longer kill because it's in their nature to do so. They loose that level of terror which they always had. It gets replaced with the Newborn. This unholy union of chimpanzee and strawberry blamanche will either have you gasping at it's horrifying elegance or make you splutter into your popcorn. Guess which one I did.
The whole film is a rehash of the previous three. We get Scott's shadowy corridors and silent terror. We get Camerons gung-ho action and horror in numbers. We get Finchers dark visuals and gothic sets. We don't get anything new except ideas which don't work or aren't used properly. In the first film the computer was called Mother. Now it's called Father. Go figure. There's also a casting problem. Hedaya and Dourif ham it up because they know they're only minor. Perlman mugs away trying to look hard but only succeeds in looking stupid. Ryder looks out of place and never quite gets her swearing right. But worst is the criminal underuse of Wincott. Add a lousy, tacked on ending and the case for the prosecution is complete.
One of the aspects of the Alien series which I've always liked is the fact that each film has a different director. This means that each film has a different visual style. I expect they'll do it again for Alien 5. Now it's absolutely essential! Get Jeunet as far away from from the film set as possible! His surreal, Lynch-like style may work for Delicatessen. Here it's just plain weird and he never seems to be taking it seriously. Hopefully the next film will have a lot less brown and a lot less goo.
This isn't a bad film (it has a strangely watchable quality) but it's a half hearted attempt which only served one purpose: getting Ripley back. It works but here's hoping that script gets made.