A good film on the whole and a worthy fourth installment.

Rating: 9/10 (17 December 2002)

There's something rather sinister about Sigourney Weaver in this fourth installment of the series. She's part alien herself. In a way, this twist is much more interesting than the aliens themselves, which we've all become familiar with by now. The aliens run around, killing people or dragging them off to be hosts for more aliens etc etc... yada yada.
But Ripley is new and improved. Pretty much right off I had a certainty that she was not only going to survive, but not even be really tested by the aliens this time. And I wasn't disappointed. She was far more deadly than they were. No the focus became would she side with the humans or aliens. And which of the humans would survive.
The rest of the story is pretty standard fare for the series. Foolish humans capture aliens, aliens escape, kill humans, remaining humans fight for survival and a way of escape. Nothing new really.
Ron Perlman has a good part, although it's his usual tough guy role, and he has some good scenes. Brad Dourif is just plain creepy as the mad scientist in love with the aliens. That guy scares me! Which goes a long way to saying he's a good actor, I guess.
But on the whole the movie is carried by Ripley's character to the extent that you don't care about any of the others, you just want to see what Ripley will do next.
Of course, the lame mutant alien at the end is just truly awful and reminded me of one of the muppets from the Muppet Show (without the hair and with more slime, of course) and was just well....crap. Truly worthy of derision.
A good film on the whole and a worthy fourth installment.