Review of Alien Resurrection (1997) by Matthew H — 30 Jul 2014

The point at which the series completely lost contact with what made the first two films - and at least the visuals of the third - great. Although they are all structured differently, there was a certain tone, atmosphere, and style that connected them.

This Alien outing is forced, ugly, and full of cliches that had come to populate sci-fi films from the mid-90s through the middle of the 21st century's first decade. This is mostly thanks to simplified attitudes towards action (less character, more grunting) and the shaky emergence of cheap CGI effects.

The result is a soggy bunch of aliens; an unrecognizable Ripley (to be fair, she is a clone); and an early, nasty draft of the Serenity crew (Joss Whedon wrote the script and seems to be using the film to test out team dynamics, complete with grumpy captain, chick mechanic, mentally disturbed superhuman cargo, and mercenary dude with girl's name.

.. all of which would improve greatly in their next iteration). In short: Everything about this film is wrong.