It Had Interesting Ideas

Rating: 6/10 (16 May 2010)

Ripley is cloned and brought back. She wasn't alone though, they also brought back the alien that was inside her. With a crew bringing some cargo on board the same ship these alien experiments go awry and the aliens escape. All that is left is Ripley and the crew of the Betty.
The reason why I think this film gets so much hate is because it seems to cheapen the ending to Alien 3, which was the best thing about that film. It ended her legacy and the story in the franchise and now comes a fourth film that many thought was a cash cow waiting to be milked. Alien: Resurrection has some interesting ideas, but the execution of the film as a whole just seems like a misfire.
The first had terror, the second had action the third had the ending, the only way to end the series. What does this one have? Again, the cash cow thing comes to mind. The producers thought if they got geek writer Joss Whedon and French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, they could fool the audience. It would seem that two rights can't make a wrong. Joss Whedon's original script was obviously changed, but in interviews he said that his final draft is what is seen on the screen. So what's the problem? The execution apparently. While Whedon went for a tongue in cheek aspect, Jeunet went down the straight and narrow and made the film serious. So I guess two rights can make a wrong.
The characters are interesting and the actors portraying them I thought was the best thing about the film. Ron Perlman and Gary Dourdan are the two stand outs in my opinion. Weaver isn't the same Ripley we once knew and loved. She is different. Part alien, she acts like one in the film. Again, it was an interesting idea, but I found myself liking her less and less. Not as much as I hated Ryder though, she was irritating and boring.
The film is looked upon as the worst one. Or the one that could be tossed up between Alien 3 as the worst. It's no bag of dirt. It's watchable, a lot better than the last two alien films we got. The problem was there was no emotion, specifically for a character who was different than what we knew. The script was written one way and the direction went in another. Neither was right or wrong, but together it doesn't work that well. The underwater sequence is great though, definitely the stand out scene among a bunch of boring running down corridors bits.
Alien: Resurrection has no sense of danger or terror. All three previous films had this in abundance. The story tried it's best to bring back the character of Ripley, but we got a shallow clone. The human/alien hybrid wasn't scary, it looked like less of a threat than the normal aliens. The climax was non-existent and should have taken place on Earth, it would have added a bit more urgency. The film looks great though. Cheers.