i’m an avid fan of the ” alien ” saga , so this review is obviously a tad biased ( at least i admitted it ) .
of course , that doesn’t mean that i’m gonna be giving this a four-star review or something , because ” alien : resurrection , ” the fourth film in the cool-as-hell series is not an absolutely amazing film , much like the first two were .
however , it’s a very good film which never fails to entertain , and consists of yet another mutation in the style of the series .
in short , i had a good time .
” alien : resurrection ” leaves off 200 years after the last one , where our heroine protagonist , ellen ripley ( sigourney weaver ) , the science fiction genre’s answer to job , had killed herself after discovering that an alien was inside her body , waiting to pop out like it did to john hurt in the first one .
of course , the last one wasn’t very great or anything ( i liked it , though not as much as the first two ) , and more importantly , it wasn’t financially successful ( a tawdry 55 million bucks ! ) .
so back we are , with ripley back as a clone , which means we get another little satirical look at cloning ( not that that’s a bad thing , but it’s becoming a cliche ) .
so she’s cloned aboard an even more futuristic-looking ship called ” the auriga ” by some doctors ( including the necessary bad government guy , dr . wren , played by j . e . freeman , as well as the little-seen dr . gediman , played by none other than brad douriff ) , mainly because they have a version of her with the alien still inside her .
once you get past the fact that you can’t figure out where they got her blood ( although i think it might have been from the blood samples taken by charles dance in the third one ) , the film’s okay .
also on board are a band of mercenary pirates , including michael wincott , ron perlman , kim flowers , raymond cruz , dominique pinon ( a jeunet sytable ) and . . . winona ryder , who plays analee call , who turns out to have a bit of a secret ( i won’t state it , but unless you’ve been shacking up with salinger for the past two years , you probably know all about it – although it’s nicely covered up ) .
there’s a bit of a non-sexual-yet-slightly-homoerotic relationship between her and ripley , but it’s never really deepened enough .
oh well .
well , as you might have guessed , the alien and its spawn escape and run around the ship .
and it pretty much does away with most of the people on the ship ( including some shocks – dan hedaya , for instance , who’s death is comical yet sad since , well , he’s dan hedaya ) , and the remaining people ( about 7 or 8 ) are left to try and escape and stop the aliens from doing any major harm since the ship is heading quickly towards earth .
of course , the plot is all balderdash , and just an excuse for some good old ” alien ” -brand fun .
the real focus of the series seems to be on style , not really substance ( although there’s always a bit of it , most notably in ” aliens ” with the relationship between ripley and the little girl ) .
what’s interesting about the series is that each film is stylistically different in its approach .
” alien ” is a claustrophobic exercise in quiet frights .
” aliens ” is a wild , tense thriller .
” alien 3 ” is a bleak , moody piece of semi-noir .
” alien 4 ” is kind of like an off-beat french film , filled with lots of humor , and cool scares .
jean-pierre jeunet ( without his usual directing partner , marc caro ) creates a ship filled with the kind of scares films like ” das boot ” has , with echoes hinting at a possible threat .
the chills in the film are really cool , especially with the music , which is sometimes turned down completely for certain scenes ( there’s the most tense surgery scene since ” face/off ” towards the beginning ) .
and not every chill turns into a bloody mess or anything like that .
this all combined with some good old humor makes this as interesting visually and stylistically as the others .
there are even a couple scenes which just stick out afterwards as being brilliantly executed .
one is the aforementioned surgery scene .
another one takes place between call and ripley , which is just awesome .
the underwater chase scene and the ladder scene afterwards is one of the most tense , thrilling , and jaw-dropping scenes in the entire saga ( with a small allusion to jeunet’s earlier film , ” delicatessen ” ) .
and the way they do in the final alien is hysterically cool ( with a lovely allusion to ” goldfinger ” ) .
but the best scene in the entire film ( i’m sure i’m not the first to mention it ) takes place when ripley sees all the variations on her as they cloned her ( she has a an ” 8 ” tatooed on her arm ) .
it might be the most emotionally stimulating scene in the entire saga .
the screenplay by joss whedon is not a great piece of work , as it never really deapens a lot of the characters .
however , it does make us care about most of them , so that when there’s very little of them , and it looks like one or more of them may become alien chow , we are pretty scared .
and , yeah , there are some very funny lines ( ripley : ” who do i have to fuck to get off this boat ? ! ”
johner : ” well , i can get you off .
but not this ship . ” )
the acting is good all around , with stand-out performances from ron perlman as the male chauvenist pig johner , and leland orser ( the poor bastad in ” se7en ” who performed the ” lust ” sin ) as an anxiety-ridden wannabe woody allen who has an alien inside him .
winona ryder is good , but not amazing like she usually is ( although she meshes well with the film ) .
of course , and as usual , sigourney weaver steals the show .
playing a variation on the ripley character ( less emotional , and more rude and bitter ) , she pulls it off while still being utterly lovable .
she’s not going to get an oscar nomination like she did for ” aliens , ” but she’s just awesome .
overall , it’s a thrilling , entertaining film which doesn’t really amaze like the first two , but is much more amazing than the third installment .
the style is the best part of the film , which isn’t really a bad thing , but it being the best part takes away from a lot of the depth the film occasionally tries to apply .
but it’s entertaining as hell , and it’s definitely fit for the ” alien ” series .