Review of Alien Resurrection (1997) by Dirigiblepulp — 27 Jul 2017

A one-off goofy, campy, B-movie comic book throw-away Alien universe film. One last ride but knowing full well the Ripley saga was truly wrapped up in the last one. Again though, as is the case with this franchise, this film has its own personality, look, feel and genre to call its own.

Ripley is a superhero now, and she's explained as emotionally autistic so as to not question why she's so benign the whole film (it's clear Whedon knew not to have her slinging quips the whole film, but he didn't know what else to do with her so he turned her into a superhero, surprise). Whedon apparently complained about the delivery of his lines in this film but I don't know. I think most of the actors are game and his dialogue is just OK.

The bigger problems are the lazy plotting (really, 200 years in the future the company still wants an Alien and they still weren't prepared for acid blood? or had a contingency plan in place...) and the lack of characterization of Ripley. There's nowhere else to take her. The only interesting thread involves Ripley kind of becoming an Alien queen at the end (there's mention of cross hybrid DNA) but this an end game play and it's interesting, it's just too bad it doesn't take up more room in the overall film.

Jeunet is not suspense generator, nightmare-maker, or an action stager. He has some pretty sets, and does well with the beautiful Alien special effects (not the CGI though, shudder). The only indelible image in the whole thing is the final shot of the new white Alien thing getting sucked out of a tiny hole. That looks painful, and it's harrowing to watch - notice that Ripley is almost crying seeing it. It's almost like the film made Ripley a mom again only to have her rip it away from herself, but I'm not entirely sure the film understood that, or knew what to do with it.