Failure!

Rating: 3/10 (4 June 1999)

"Alien" was an original: suspenseful, haunting, claustrophobic. "Aliens" was the most popular part, but the one I didn't like because I just experienced it as very boring all in all. "Alien³" was very dark, but in its darkness it really had power. "Resurrection" is indeed much more suspenseful than "Aliens", but it's just too obviously just stupid.
It doesn't really seem to be a bad movie, because it is very entertaining. It's gloomy, creepy, suspenseful and very much action. But it's only visual, if you look at it as a puzzle, no piece fits the other. When it comes to a quiet scene and some dialogue, you get like paralyzed and "Huh?", "Explain?", "Come again?"... When you read a synopsis it sounds like it made sense, but... I don't know: We get too much and no time to make something of it.
The movie seems like very very much was just cut out and thrown away. There are many scenes that seem to indicate what kind of story should have been told. Like the one where the big alien creature seems to like Ripley because she's one of her kind. The whole Ripley with alien DNA idea was interesting, has always been announced and praised, but it's not worked out. Most of the time is running, facing the aliens, trying to figure out who is who and who is dead and who not, who is up to what. It seems like Jeunet wanted to tell a story, failed and did something different.
As in all Alien features, the cast consists of (up to date) rather unknown actors. But in "Alien", everyone was talented and everyone was to become a well-known actor. I hardly think anyone will speak of Gary Dourdan again, for example. The cast consists of Sigourney, Winona Ryder, Dan Hedaya, Brad Dourif, Michael Wincott (who looks a bit like Gary Oldman), many many un-known people and in one of the biggest parts one of the most unsympathetic and un-shining men in movie history, Ron Perlman. No good at all. Even Winona Ryder is just silly in this one.
It's visually stunning, atmospheric but: don't think, just watch! Maybe you shouldn't even listen.
Oh, and I read that there was some irony in the movie, and I have to agree, there is. But there's also a lot of dullness therefore. So if one would take it all *personally*, he or she would maybe both enjoy and suffer. Rating: 4 out of 10