The one that destroyed the franchise

Rating: 3/10 (8 October 2003)

I must say that this was the last in the series of the four alien movies I saw. First I saw Alien 3, then the original Alien, I catched Alien: Resurrection in the theaters and finally I got my chance to see this one. I was pretty excited to finally see the film that everybody told nothing but good, but after the film... Well, I felt a bit betrayed.
The original Alien was more like a Lovecraftian mystery than an action film. The creature that was hardly seen and when it was seen it looked like something diffrent than your normal man in a rubber suit (ala Predator), like something that could just stand next to the ships walls and dissapear to the dark painting of gaslines. This was something that Cameron refused to understand. Propably thinking of Starship Troopers without having to pay the rights for the book, Cameron wrote the story of Aliens. Ripley, after escaping the alien in the first film, is revived after drifting in space for a long long time and is given a change to make his revenge with a group of space marines at her side. First problem with the film is the script. It's very traditional following everything taught by the "now you can write a script too"-books. No true surprises, everybody is motivated and follows their lines with boring results. A special thanks to Gormans actor for his campy performance during the first attack. Just the fact that Siquorney was nominated for an oscar for this role makes you wonder by what standards do they choose in the Academy. The dark gothic look of the Alien is gone, replaced by Camerons "blue"-look than can be found in his every movie. The Alien has been redesigned to look more like a skeleton than the shiny tubular biomechanoid of the first one. It's a good thing they returned to the original design in Alien3. The action is your usual Cameron. Slow, with huge fireballs.
Finally the idea about the Queen just destroyed the mystery surrounding the alien creature. In Alien the creature showed some strange signs by toying with its prey and propably raping Lambert. In this one, the creatures are just mindless drones thats main purpose is to kill. Thus Cameron manages to take away the horror of the original Alien. Even the facehugger gets a facelift to look a little bit less menacing. And the overhyped queen? Looking at the queen and comparing it with the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park 3 makes you just wonder if Stan Winstons studio can ever get that stutter out of their animatronics, since Jim Henson studios have been without it for years. The good things about this campy action movie? Well, there are some pretty good effect shots, like the ones of the dropship and the final battle. But in the end this film will be admired by people without the patience to look at something like Alien or The Thing. But in my mind it will always be like Commando: Funny as hell at the points it's supposed to be dead serious.