The final resurrection? Lets hope so!

Rating: 1/10 (8 November 2001)

Not another bad review, well yes.
I was in the minority of people that enjoyed Alien 3, yes it was flawed but it tried something different & in the final scene the Alien saga was brought to a fitting conclusion. It also didn't resort to ripping off the death-by-airlock idea from the original which was stolen for the sequel. The fourth instalment again has a variation on the originals ending but this is not the greatest of its crimes. It is set for some unknown reason 200 years after Alien 3. I say unknown as neither the sets or the hardware reflect any significant advancement from the other films in the franchise. Yet again we have blokes with guns running through industrial pipe n smoke filled corridors but these individuals we neither care for or understand. They are sketchy characters at best, cliched bad guys with ricocheting bullets & other comic book tricks. This whole film is like a cartoon version of Alien aimed at the MTV generation. This is not surprising considering it was scripted by Joss Whedon. If you wade through the dross there is the hint of a good film in here. Bringing Ripley back was really the only thing they could do as an Alien film without her would be even worse (is that possible). The Ripley clone with Alien characteristic is an enticing idea but one that is wasted here. Maybe she should have been the bad guy, the Alien species absent? The scene in which she destroys here clone 'sister' was what I thought would be a turning point for the movie but alas this was not to be. Now we come to this films crowning glory the woeful, laughable alien/human hybrid. What on earth was that THING? Were the designers actually proud of creating this? What did they think an audiences reaction to it would be other than laughter? A truly terrible climax to a terrible film.