Superior to Alien 3

Rating: 8/10 (22 January 2005)

While this is commonly thought of as the weaker installment of this line, personally, I believe it to be superior to Alien 3 in many important ways.
200 years after Ripley's death, she is cloned and brought back to life. The cloning process, however, also involved the DNA of the Alien Queen, giving her superhuman powers and abilities. After several failed attempts, they finally make good with a humanoid Ripley/Queen with superior intelligence and talents.
According to the Making of documentary, this installment was very unlike the disorganized mess which was Alien 3 in that this attempt was together and ready to go a year before they actually started shooting. The story was polished and perfected, and was a unique and creative story in comparison. It was a big script in Hollywood. The buzz about it was that it had elements which made it a worthwhile successor to the first two, completely ignoring the third installment all together.
Alien: Resurrection takes the Alien franchise to places fans would never have dreamed, without compromising the key elements of the Alien world, and does it successfully.
The studios did not want a typical Hollywood popcorn movie to be part of this franchise, and therefore hired Jean-Pierre Jeunet (City of Lost Children, if you can dig it) to bring in a unique interpretive eye to the direction of this project. His visual style is quite distinct and permeates this work in a pro-active way. It was, perhaps, the most shrewd move Fox could have made in that his unique perspective was the single-most saving factor of this attempt.
The action sequences are quite rousing, the story here is once again solid and convincing, and the performances are still the top row quality you expected from this line.
The fight sequences are well choreographed and executed; beautifully done, as is the rest of this movie. While I cannot rate it as high as I did the first two, it is obviously superior to Alien 3 in all ways that matter.
It rates a 7.9/10 from...
the Fiend :.