Rule of Eights

Rating: Null/10 (18 October 2003)

Why do we watch Alien movies? Truth to be told, it's the production design.
The Alien movies don't have an original style, but rather are amalgamations of lesser elements. With ALIEN it was Halloween and It! Terror from Beyond Space. ALIENS was Rambo and Ghostbusters. ALIEN3...well, I can't really see any large elements taken into it other than Rosemary's Baby. With our beloved "Resurrection", Jeunet infuses too much French style reminiscent of The Fifth Element, Starship Troopers, and Species. Of course, traces of Resurrection are evident in everything ranging from Dark City to the Matrix.
Perhaps another big problem with Resurrection is that it is less functional and utilitarian like the original Trilogy and more modern, too futuristic. There is technology, but no understanding of it. Cameron had the opposite problem in ALIENS of making an overabundance of hardware and trying to spend too much time explaining its operation. At least he paid that much attention to detail. Resurrection is 1/8 as powerful.
Next, DO THEY CALL THAT CREATURE DESIGN?! The first two movies were a miracle in the design phase--the second getting my favor for improving the appearance. ALIEN3 started the overuse of CGI that plagues this movie..."Yeah, real scary. Hit the 'delete' key and alien goes adios." Here the creators tried inserting too much style (and slime) into the creatures that make it less animalistic and more cartoonish. It is 1/8 as creative as the original.
I'm certain Jeunet is proudest about the Queen birth scene near the end. So much of his French style and method are visible in contrast to Cameron and Scott's darkness method. Bright moody colors are prevalent compared to the subdued hues of the first two...Luc Besson must have noticed. In that sense, this is 8 times brighter than the first movie.
By comparison to ALIEN3, Resurrection still fails because it stays too far into familiar territory. Perhaps Fincher knew that his style was going to be the future of the series...so he killed it then and there. Too bad the studio didn't agree.
Overall, Resurrection has cinematography power (and more gore than the Original Trilogy combined) and little else. The characters are typical--evil scientist, obvious android, tough black guy, and stupid white male reminiscent of Hudson from the second movie--the plot is worse, and the production design falters because computers aren't as good at replicating environments like miniatures and mattes. 1.5 out of 5 stars.