** (out of ****)
Starring Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, Brad Dourif, J.E. Freeman, Dan Hedaya, Raymond Cruz, Kim Flowers, and Michael Wincott
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jenuet & written by Joss Whedon, based on characters created by Dan O’Bannion and Ronald Shusett
1997 R
“Alien3,” while well-made and thoughtful, is a film about which I am uncertain because it has no respect for the emotional investment made in the characters of “Alien” and “Aliens.” “Alien Resurrection” does not even respect the thematic arc of “Alien3.” “Alien3,” definitely not my favorite in the series, at least had a reason for being, albeit a nasty one, but “Alien Resurrection” does not. It takes the trappings and mythology of the “Alien” universe, including the characters, institutions, and outer space hardware, and uses them as an arena for a long, protracted fight sequence. It adds some more details to the history and science of the beasts, but this is wrongheaded, because it implies the monsters are more interesting when they are less mysterious, as opposed to the other way around. “Aliens” and, although I hate to admit it, “Alien3” both ended with me knowing about as much about the monsters as I wanted and left the rest to long, late-night speculations with my friends.
“Alien” and “Aliens” are great movies. “Alien3” has me too confused emotionally to recommend without reservations; if it existed without the emotional investments I made in the first two pictures I would probably like it. If “Alien Resurrection” existed in a vacuum without comparison to “Alien” or “Aliens” I would probably like it, too, on the basis of being a decent adventure movie, maybe on par with “Mission: Impossible II,” “Lethal Weapon 4,” “Die Hard with a Vengeance,” or something else with a number at the end. If “Alien Resurrection” told the story of a different woman, not Sigourney Weaver, being chased around a spaceship by a different set of monsters, whose heads she and several others frequently blow apart, maybe I would be more forgiving (oh, by the way, that’s the whole plot pretty much). Most action movies set in the present aren’t much more meaningful than that. “Alien Resurrection” even has a fair amount of style and energy; it is directed, after all, by the co-director of “City of Lost Children,” one of the best films of 1995 and certainly the most eye-popping (“Alien Resurrection” even stars Dominique Pinon and Ron Perlman, who appeared in “Lost Children”). But we expect more from this series; each of the previous films has a distinct setting, tone, and pace. “Alien Resurrection” is merely an inferior repeat of “Aliens,” in which men and women with hard faces and big guns blast deadly monsters inside a cold and creepy industrial-looking complex.
There are some decent action sequences. An upside-down hanging-from-a-ladder shoot-out and a frightening underwater sequence almost make me give “Resurrection” another half-star. But compared to “Aliens,” the characters aren’t particularly well-drawn, the story, by "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"-creator Joss Whedon, isn’t as interesting, and none of this is fresh any longer. All these aspects are crucial to providing emotional investment in a fight, which is more important than any special effect. So by no fault of their own the action sequences in “Resurrection” aren’t as good as in “Aliens,” even if they are technically as competent. (One of the things I noticed in a recent viewing of “Aliens” that I hadn’t noticed before is that director James Cameron shows his soldiers shooting at the monsters a lot more than the monsters being blown to smithereens. “Resurrection” does not keep to this rule and suffers as a result.)
So are the fight scenes worth the cost of admission or a trip to the video store? Maybe, if you haven’t seen the other three “Alien” movies in a really long time.
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