I don't use the word "Crap-tacular" very often...

Rating: Null/10 (7 June 2002)

but Alien:Resurrection was crap-tacular. Crap-tastic, even. This is a great example of the "ruin it with pointless sequels" theory. The first two Alien films are brilliant. They are truly scary, feature great characters portrayed by great actors in a well thought out, well executed story. The third one began to slide towards silly, but Resurrection was down right slap in the face to all who loved the series. First problem: Sigourney Weaver. While the name of the character is Ripley, lets face it, that ain't Ellen Ripley. She has none of the insurmountable determination coupled with sickening compassion that she featured in the fist three installments. Instead, she is some sly, ultra tough comic-book villain in a lead role. Second problem: too much pointless gore. The scene where Dan Hedaya reaches around and pulls a piece of brain out of his open skull was waaaay over the top. I mean, the chest busting scenes of the first few were shocking, and that set the tone for the shocks to follow, but the brain scene was simply gratuitous. Another scene is where the science experiment guy is about to have a chest buster emerge from himself. What does he do? Runs around like a circus clown until he can grab a bad guy from behind, and has the chest buster exit him, and enter the back of the bad guy, essentially, taking the bad guy with him. Stupidest death ever. Third thing wrong with the film: The director is taking a hard advantage of the fact that everyone knows what the alien looks like. Take a look at the aliens of the first three movies. We never really get a good hard look at them before they leap out of the shot or the camera cuts away. That helps create the suspense of "Oh my god, what is that thing??". But when you get a full body shot of the aliens over a period of 15-30 seconds, suddenly, they just don't seen very scary anymore. Final thing wrong: the whole stupid plot. While I did find certain scenes to be interesting, a few scenes can't save a stupid movie. Why was it set in an even more distant future? Wasn't the distant future of the first three distant enough? Obviously not. What happened to all those intriguing characters at the end of the third movie? The lone surviving prisoner, the Bishop creator? Those were great characters, and the possibility of a further conspiracy through "the company" was completely ignored. And of course Winona Rider as the hidden android. She was a subtle a a baseball bat to the face. Terrible casting there. Overall, I highly recommend the first two, see the third movie if you are curious, but I can only recommend Resurrection if you want to see how Hollywood can poop all over a great series.