Let it die

Rating: 4/10 (7 June 2015)

Ellen Ripley is back for another Alien adventure. Kindly ignore the fact that when last we saw her Ripley was quite dead. How to continue a franchise when you've killed off your star? Cloning of course. Duh. So 200 years after her demise Ripley is back, the military having cloned her because they want the Alien queen that was inside her when she died. You think the military would have learned better by now than to try to harness these Alien killing machines. But of course had they learned their lesson there would be no movie. And the studio wanted to make some easy cash off another Alien movie so here we are. After the disaster that was Alien³ the franchise should have been allowed to die. This movie is slightly better than the last but that's not saying much. Enough is enough.
As ever with this franchise Sigourney Weaver is the best thing about this film. Another strong performance as she portrays a strong heroine. And this time there's a little mystery to Ripley, with the cloning process she's got some Alien blood mixed up inside her. That raises some interesting issues. Indeed the first part of this film does show some promise as we get to know this new Ripley. But it devolves rather quickly. It turns into just another rehash. Aliens attack, blood and gore, repeat as necessary. We've seen all this before and quite frankly we've seen more than enough of it. The story does have a few new twists as it moves towards the finish. But by the time the "big" moments come you'll probably have lost interest. Weaver gets very little support. Winona Ryder is the big co-star here and she's all wrong for this movie. Sci-fi action is not her thing. The only other actor who stands out at all is Ron Perlman. Unfortunately he only stands out because of how annoying his character is. Reminiscent of Bill Paxton in Aliens. Perlman isn't quite as annoying as Paxton was but it's close. There aren't enough good things here to make the resurrection of this franchise remotely worthwhile. Let Ripley and the Aliens rest in peace.