Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Dan Hedaya
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. You buy an Alien box set in a couple of different formats, and you’re bound to give in. My biggest memory of the film, however, is it opening along with the grand opening of the AMC Southroads 20 here in Tulsa, and my poor little 13 year would have wanted nothing more in life than to just go to the theater of my own accord and watch a mindless monster movie sequel.
Did I Like It: I’ve been watching a lot of 90s late-series genre movies lately, and there’s no way to judge this movie by exceptionally harsh standards. Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997) should have probably been cancelled before shooting began. Batman & Robin (1997) is a movie I have been spending a lot of my life really loathing, and for some good reason, but I’ve come to understand that someone out there might enjoy it. Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) I keep referencing in recent reviews, mainly because the more I think about it, the worse the movie gets. Ultimately, this one could be a lot worse, and sort of works in fits and starts as a b sci-fi movie. It’s a step up from Alien 3 (1992), although the last entry didn’t exactly leave us with a lot of beloved characters to suddenly kill in a prologue.
One doesn’t necessarily want to engage in a lot of blind praise for Joss Whedon, but the story of this film is its strong suit. Ultimately the pitch of “a prototype version of the crew from Firefly and Serenity (2005)) up against a new batch of Xenomorphs is a nice idea for a movie. Sure, the notion that some of Ripley’s (Weaver) memories survive into a clone is a little silly, but the cloning plot line does give the movie something of a reason for existing, and more importantly gives Weaver new and interesting things to do. All of this concludes with an ending that seems ready for a future (that was not meant to be) for the series—which Alien 3 was resolutely against—even if that history was meant to focus on Ryder’s Call, always inhabiting the film as if she is waiting to take over in the event Weaver gets bored.
Special effects are the film’s Achilles’ heel, though. There is some interesting and genuinely unsettling creature work when the film focuses—really only for a single scene—on the array of Ripley clone drafts. But our friend the Xenomorph never looked—and never would look—so underwhelming. Physical actors in suits look like the costumes were hastily put together. The otherworldly quality of H.R. Giger or Stan Winston are gone. The less said about the more extensive attempts—Alien 3 tried it occasionally—to render the creatures using CGI, the better. If I had wanted to play the Alien Resurrection game on the original Playstation, I would have just done that.