More of the same, but somehow less...

Rating: Null/10 (5 November 2001)

**WARNING: INCLUDES SPOILER(S)**
I was looking forward to this one: after the dire Alien3, anything would be an improvement.
Oh dear. Alien: Delicatessen (duh, sorry) is a sinner for several reasons.
Most strikingly, it appears set-bound and unconvincing. The haunted corridors of the NOSTROMO and the 80's industrial plant-scape of Aliens had some feeling of reality, but the setting for this fourth effort (though undeniably grand in scale) seems very like something in a movie studio.
The cast don't seem to involved either; when a character is not on screen, I can't imagine that they're doing anything other than waiting for their next entrance. Of course, that is exactly what they ARE doing, but you're supposed to believe that they're running around doing military/scientific/mercenary stuff, and that's hard in this movie- it's too window-dressy and any tension is not sustainable.
By now, surely, it's time to move the idea on a bit. Aliens managed this, with its glimpse of the social nature of the creatures, and we did get a little behavioural insight in Resurrection with two of them offing one of their own without a second thought in order to escape from their confinement aboard the AURIGA.
If the franchise continues, it could profit from developing the story of the aliens themselves, which Resurrection fought shy of doing.
However, it must be said that the worst was saved for the last reel. Ripley's 'grand-child' was a farcical device from the C-movie rubber-suit school. As if that were not enough, Brad Dourif's potty scientist insisted on hanging from the wall of the birth chamber cooing inanely at the new-borne beast in tones reminiscent of Kenneth Williams' character Orlando in 'Carry On Screaming'. On this evidence, husbands should not be allowed in the delivery room.
But if the wretched hybrid suffered an unfortunate start in life, its early demise was the stuff of crude airline gags: it ended up, as the saying goes, getting sucked through a hole in the fuselage.
Perhaps it would be too unkind to say that Monsieur Jeunet has made the SAME film yet again (with many of the same cast), but he did not bring enough to this one by a long way.
I heard that Ridley Scott is in the frame for a potential Alien 5; maybe he can put back some of that awful magic.
If you like contemporary sci-fi horror (a genre less over-supplied than it may seem) then Resurrection is worth seeing, but don't expect too much.