Good Lord, that was awful!

Rating: 1/10 (6 December 1998)

Since there was nothing else very interesting on cable this evening, I watched "Alien Resurrection" for the first (and last) time on HBO. I am a tremendous fan of both Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder; therefore, by the end of this waste of celluloid, I was sad to have seen them in this... this... send-up? (I think Weaver and Ryder knew the truth, because, wow, were they just walking through their roles.) The best of all the Alien films was the first: "Alien." Why? I can think of three reasons right off the bat -- 1) Ridley Scott directed masterfully (especially for a first feature film), 2) this was a film based on characters (even the alien) and not gadgets, and 3) because in "Alien" the idea was new and fresh, it was (dare I say it?) original. And credit Scott that it was at least as suspenseful as Hitchcock's very best -- possibly more so. For "Aliens" John Cameron (writer, director) thought the original idea was good, so instead of being original himself he threw a bunch of money at it. He tossed in some unnecessary back story, filled the screen with gadgets and people in black rubber suits crawling through the air conditioning ducts atop sound stages at Fox, and had nearly all the characters play it either "over the top" (Bill Paxton comes to mind) or over-simplistically. Do you really want me to believe that, with the exception of Vasquez and Hicks, those intergalactic Marines were a group of "tough hombres"? But then, maybe Cameron was just practising for "Titanic," great eye-candy with little or no script support (he co-wrote) or depth of character. Give credit where it is due, though: Cameron sure has made a lot of money at the box office. Does this say something about him, or about us? Meanwhile, back at the Alien films... "Aliens 3" was just dreadful, and had story potholes that could swallow a Buick. (Actually, the book was much better than the film. Surprise, surprise.) I did find a bit of humor in it, upon reflection, when Ripley did herself in the very same way Arnold Schwarzenegger would later do in "T2" (another Cameron film, proving he can even steal ideas from himself... I wonder if he realizes it?). But did "they" stop there, stop milking this cash cow? Heavens no. They gave us "Alien Resurrection." To tell the truth, I wish they hadn't, and had donated the shooting budget to their favorite charity instead. Or maybe they could have spent some of it on a script that would have created some audience connection with -- and caring for -- the characters. But then, such stuff as "story" in a bad action movie would have just gotten in the way of making one more "really cool" special effects shot. Come to think of it, though, there really wasn't anything "special" about those, either: that sort of computer stuff has been done again and again, though I think the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" (for instance) had more heart and soul, more character -- more STORY -- to them than these goop-filled head-bangers did. I do wonder, though, what the day-rate was for the grip to do the run-around-in-the-queen-alien's-prenatal-abdomen-just-before-giving-birth shots... Just wondering... There was one -- count it: ONE -- good thing in "Alien Resurrection": there was no "grip-help" from just-out-of-frame -- Sigourney actually made the backwards half-court basketball shot, and got nothing but net. I'll bet it took Jeunet a few moments to call "cut" on that take just from the shock. Should have wrapped the whole movie there and gone home... Oh, well...