Worse than I expected

Rating: 4/10 (17 January 2003)

I'd heard this was a great movie but I still rented it with reservation. The plot lost me, not being a cloning geek, and seemed to drift around aimlessly. The movie appeared to hang more on the spooky behavior of Sigourney Weaver Dr. Doolittling with the aliens. Winona Ryder was out of place, Brad Dourif was his usual creepy self (not a bad thing, but he still couldn't salvage it), and I don't know what was going on with Ron Perlman and his "extreme" moments of yelling. It was pretty shoddy all around. The only standouts for me were the scene with Ripley and the basketball and Michael Wincott's all-too-brief role. He of the magnificent voice should have been given more to do.
It seemed a lot longer than the 108 minutes listed on the box. Aliens seems shorter than that. I'm not a shoot-em-up type of movie watcher, but I do like the stories to have a point and engaging characters. The Marines of Aliens are pretty eye-grabbing whereas the space trash in Alien 4 had no charisma (except Michael "The Voice" Wincott of course).
4/10