"Ripley, I heard you went against these things before - what happened?”
“I died.”
ALIEN: RESURRECTION
1997
Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Writer: Joss Whedon
With: Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Rn Perlman, Dan Hedaya, J.E. Freeman, Brad Dourif, Michael Wincott
Alien design originally created by: H.R. Giger
What is it about:
Ellen Ripley is cloned 200 years in the future from blood samples taken in Alien3. A Queen and 12 soldier aliens are born on a military/science station outside regulation space. After the aliens break out, everyone escapes the station with the exception of six civilians, one scientist, one military soldier, and Ripley. Due to her blood containing DNA of the alien-Queen and human blood, she has traits of both species - acid blood and alien-strength/senses and the regular ho-hum human exceistence. So the survivors flee across the station to another escape ship where they can leave the station and blow it up killing the aliens. But there are a few problems: 1) The scientist doesn’t want the others to survive. 2) There are aliens hunting them down. 3) There is a new breed of alien that is a direct descendant of Ripley and The Queen’s mixed DNA. Oh, and the station has this program where if something bad happens, it automatically heads back home - to Earth! Uh-oh. If these aliens get to Earth the world is doomed! So they have to stop that as well as survive.
Cephas’ notes and spoilers:
Much better than Alien3 by far! The special effects were incredible; the lighting and direction was great; the casting was wonderful; and Ripley (Weaver) was astounding! (Yes, I am using a thesauras.) Ripley moved just like an alien when she walked. She swam different than most people do, almost as if she were...an alien! They used her new traits superbly - using her new blood to melt wires or windows that would save her life! When we see the first 7 clones of her I was in awe. They were so grotesque and inspired that if it were real I would have been sick, it was also the only scene, I think, that Ripley ever showed any emotion! Because of her mixed DNA, she has missing parts of her memory and emotions. SO she is very detached from everytging around her. She doesn’t feel any pain, or care for anyone. I like this new Ripley a lot. Winona was not as good as I hoped however. (Yes, this is where I begin to trash things.) She seemed too much she does in past films. But they made a couple nice touches on what has happened to the artificial lifeforms (as Bishop put it in Aliens) and then they made some mistakes in what they said just five minutes earlier on the info they gave. (Oops!) And you know how I said that the station was outside regulation space? Well, towards the end we discover that they have only 3 hours until the station crashes into Earth. (What??!) And then since they are just travelling from one end of the station to another to escape, the trip takes over 1-1/2 hours (movie time) to get almost there. Then they decide to crash the ship so now they have less time to leave. Their target to crash into is: Earth! Wait, so we have 90 minutes to crash into earth, then they choose a new target to protect earth and the new target is: Earth and now they have 42 minutes left? (Okay! That makes sense! Yeah, they must be using a futuristic clock that I don’t have in my TARDIS yet - whatever.) So they make that last 100 yard dash to the ship “Betty” that takes 40 minutes of film time (not real time) and escape. And, like in Alien3, the alien (the new breed that is) somehow manages to get on board the ship that is never explained in the film and attacks Winona. Then they all live in the end. Or rather the survivors live at the end (4 of them to be precise.) as they enter Earth’s atmosphere. So, from what we know of how the government feels about Ripley, these people are targets for the government for dozens, if not hunderd or even thousands of broken laws and willful destruction of government property not to mention being government property on the run (namely Ripley and Call since one was a government created clone and the other a refugee android) and the other 2 are already known pirates. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention how ghastly and horrible the new alien breed is. This should never have happened, or at least not in the way they did it. It looks horrible and was born horribly in a way that repulses you as an Alien fan and not as a viewer. One more thing, there is a awesome part of the film where they swim underwater to get to a certain shaft where they have to get to in order to get to the “Betty” and there are two aliens swimming after them. Really cool! And when Call (Winona’s character) gets shot by the scientist, she falls from a ladder into the water and is assumed dead (no one knows she is an android yet.) and after they get past the dangers on the ladders to get to a entrance, Call apears on the other side of the door, alive! Now, if she didn’t have to use the ladders after all like they did, why couldn’t they have gone the same way as her and saved themselves a lot of grief and death?
Cephas’ Rating:
SEE THIS FILM IN THE THEATRE.
I say this only because it was a good film overall if you look beyond the flaws. There are other flaws I didn’t bother to mention only because they are not as bad as the ones I listed. But this film definetly saves us all from the horror that was Alien3. Alien3 sucked beyond all belief! But Alien: Resurrection was a good film. No where near as good as Alien or Aliens, but worth seeing. And yes, I did have fun watching this one - I was yelling at the screen going “Yeah! Awesome! Ow!” and other annoying things like that. Annoying to some I am sure since I was the ONLY one doing that! Hee-heeeee! :-D
For more on this film, go see the following site:
Official Alien:Resurrection Web Site
Read an extra review by my good friend "MAD MAN"!
Mad Man's review