"My mommy always said there are no monsters, no real ones, but there are," Ellen Ripley tells the audience in the opening to ALIEN: RESURRECTION, the latest installment in the ALIEN saga.
ALIEN and ALIENS are the two of the scariest movies ever made. Most horror films are horrible with the emphasis on the grossness rather than the fright. ALIEN and ALIENS, on the other hand, are smartly written science fiction exercises in terror. After the disastrous and depressingly bleak ALIEN 3 and after the death of the story's lead, it might appear to the casual viewer than the series was over. Au contraire. Movie moguls are fully empowered to revive the dead for the sake of the bottom line.
In ALIEN: RESURRECTION an undercover branch of the United States military takes blood from the place where Ripley died and clones up a new Ripley so they can harvest the alien inside her chest. (One of the best parts of the story is the scene in the laboratory when Ripley comes face to face with large tubes filled with failed attempts at cloning her DNA.)
Sigourney Weaver, who else, appears again as the alien hunter par excellence. This time she smiles a lot with her in-joke that she is now partly alien herself. Imbued with extraterrestrial strength, she fights both man and alien.
Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, whose last film was the imaginative THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, and writer Joss Whedon from TOY STORY stage ALIEN: RESURRECTION with innovation abounding. Who would have ever thought of having an underwater scene in space? And the way the meanest of the monsters is killed is effective both visually and as part of the storyline.
The writing starts off crisp and mockingly funny. "It's a queen," Ripley explains to the crew of the now inhabited ship. "She'll breed; you'll die." (In another delicious bit of humor, you'll be relieved to know that the Home Shopping Network, this time selling weapons, is still available in the future.)
Joining Ripley is Winona Ryder playing Annalee Call, who is described as a "little girl playing pirates." Annalee wants to wipe out the aliens, but Ripley questions her motives and generally seems to have her own hidden agenda. Once a valiant alien fighter, the new part human and part alien Ripley keeps a mysterious smile on her face throughout most of the picture.
The military scientists violate rule number one of alien capture. Big, ugly alien monsters do not take kindly to confinement. When suitably riled, they can and will break out of any enclosure. Once they are out all hell breaks loose and the show degenerates into the standard man shoots at monster, monster eats man scenario you've seen many times before.
The whole long middle section of the film is repetitious, tiring, and too slow. Only in the last act does the picture finally pick its genre. Being sometimes grotesque but never scary, the movie gives up and decides, correctly, that it can be a very funny space comedy. Although not nearly as humorous or effective as STARSHIP TROOPERS, which never tries to be anything more than a spoof, ALIEN: RESURRECTION did have the audience at the press screening I attended in stitches towards the end. If only the show had made up its mind from the get-go that humor was its salvation, it could have been much better.
So you ask, do they lay the groundwork for an ALIEN 5? Absolutely. You are left knowing where the next episode will be set and where the monster will come from. Any other silly questions?
By : Steve Rhodes
Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
Rating: 3
Handed the reigns of the moribund "Alien" franchise, French director Jean- Pierre Jeunet ("City Of Lost Children") faced the daunting task of breathing life into a horror series that virtually died in its last installment. The pallid "Alien 3" climaxed with Ellen Ripleys swan dive into an ocean of fire, a sacrifice to protect humanity from the alien growing within her own body. With the heroine fried and most fans of the series either angered or bored, whats left to do? Raise the dead, of course, and thats just what Jeunet and writer Joss Whedon have done, with some intriguing side trips along the way.
"Alien: Resurrection" contains the requisite extended chase scenes, but thats the least interesting part of the movie. The appeal of the film lies in the fringes, as Jeunet employs grotesque visions and kinky sexual imagery to flirt with some intriguing notions, including what exactly constitutes the very nature of identity. While too cold and formulaic to fully satisfy, "Resurrection" has enough darkly rewarding moments to warrant a visit.
A little history for those who missed the first three films. The aliens are incredibly vicious predators with acid literally coursing through their veins. An alien grows by emerging from a pod and springing onto the face of an unwitting host, then shooting its seed down the gullet of the victim. After an incubation period, it bursts through the hosts chest and scurries off to finish the growth process. Rumor has it that telemarketers are bred the same way.
The film begins with the quasi-resurrection of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), depicted in a series of stylish fade-ins. On a military spaceship 200 years after the last film, scientists clone Ripley in order to retrieve the alien queen from her body. Proving that government stupidity is timeless, the boys in charge plan to raise a herd of the hyper-violent creatures, taming and training them for some unexplained evil purpose. Following the surgical extraction of the queen, Ripley 8 (the first seven clone attempts were nightmarish failures) is kept alive for curiosity value alone. A disdainful officer spares her life, while declaring "As far as Im concerned, Number 8 is just a meat by-product."
Ripley 8 grows, and we learn that, due to the alien DNA used in the cloning process, she isnt entirely human. Thanks to the racial memory of the aliens, the clone retains the memories of the original Ripley, but her strange smile, reptilian movements and acidic blood make it clear that she is something very, very different.
Enter the Betty, a commercial freighter crewed by mercenaries. Theyve hijacked the cryogenically-frozen bodies of a group of miners, to sell them as hosts for the first batch of aliens. However, one of the mercenaries, junior mechanic Call (Winona Ryder,) has a decidedly different agenda. In short order, all hell breaks loose as the mercenaries take over the ship and the aliens get loose, forcing the soldiers, Call and Ripley 8 into an uneasy alliance.
"Resurrections" action sequences move along well enough, particularly an underwater chase scene, but the characters are too disposable to be engaging on an emotional level. The blue-collar crew of the Betty is an unpleasant lot, sketchy stereotypes mostly, and its hard to look at them as much more than Alien Chow.
Thankfully, Sigourney Weavers enigmatic Ripley 8 is a fascinating creation. She clearly remembers who she was, but what exactly is she now? Did Ripleys soul make the jump to this new body, or is Ripley 8 just a Xerox, an alien hybrid with stolen memories? Weaver and Jeunet work well together, examining the whole notion of individual identity through this unique creature. Weaver gets to deliver a number of deadpan one-liners as well, adding a welcome touch of humor while maintaining the cryptic nature of the character.
Throughout the film, Jeunet toys with the freaky sexuality that has always been an undercurrent of the series. A scientist holds his lips close to an aliens face, separated only by protective glass, in one of the more obvious moments of perverse sensuality. A shrink would have a field day with the whole notion of face-hugging alien breeders, and Jeunet knows the real horror story lies there. Unfortunately, instead of pursuing that truly disturbing line, he returns to the tired chase format and, despite the inventive set pieces and rich Gothic-industrial art direction, weve seen this stuff too many times before. The horror of "Alien: Resurrection" doesnt come from the idea of monsters chasing us. It comes from the exploration of why we want them to.
By : Ed Johnson-Ott
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