Alien Resurrection (1997) Review

Alien Resurrection (1997) Review

It happened with Friday the 13^th. It happened with Saw. It happened with Halloween. They were all horror film franchises that were brought to a conclusion, which ended up being far from true endings. And, it happened to Alien. After franchise-star Sigourney Weaver wanted her character Ripley to die at the end of Alien 3, which she did, along with the last xenomorph, it seemed impossible to do a sequel (a prequel, maybe? But no, that was a few more years away). And yet, life (and 20^th Century Fox) found a way. 

Alien Resurrection begins with Ripley being cloned by military scientists, and safely removing the subsequently-cloned xenomorph queen from her chest. Right off the bat, having the chestburster be removed safely ruins the horror of it. Once, this was the most-horrific thing to ever happen in a movie. Now, it’s as simple as getting your appendix taken out. The rest of the movie involves a rough-and-tough group of mercenaries, along with one of the Ripley clones, trying to escape a ship that becomes overrun in aliens.

I really liked this one as a kid. It was more like Aliens with the fusion of action and horror, but it also had a lot of weird stuff. Watching it today, I appreciate more of the weird concepts and moments than I do the recycling of elements from the previous three movies. I once heard Alien Resurrection described as “deeply 90’s”, and really, that’s the best description you could give it. It’s an often silly, cheesy sequel, which makes it more fun on a surface-level than Alien 3, but also makes it feel distant to the franchise’s gritty horror roots. 

The characters aren’t all that unique, and there are lots of them, but most of them are, at the very least, more interesting than any from Alien 3. Of course you know most of them are just there for the aliens to kill, but with actors like Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, and Brad Dourif filling out the cast, they’re at least entertaining to watch. 

The primary problem with Alien Resurrection is it lacks the ingenuity of previous movies, and goes way over the top at every turn. The mercenaries are a lot like the wise-cracking space marines of Aliens, the scientists are reminiscent of Ash in Alien, and as for Ripley herself? She’s basically a superhero now, because her DNA has intermingled with the xenomorph, giving her weak-acid blood, increased strength, heightened senses, but also, a lack of personality or social skills. She simply isn’t the Ripley fans came to love over the course of the previous films, despite still being played by Sigourney Weaver.  

But what’s over-the-top about it? Well, everything. To describe every little moment would be impossible, but moments like…

-A scientist (Brad Dourif) smooching the glass wall of the xenomorph enclosure while it slobbers on the glass on the other side

- Johner (Ron Perlman) shooting a spider in a web right in front of his face because it spooked him while they’re being attacked by the aliens

-Ripley tearing out a dead xenomorph’s inner jaw and handing it to Winona Ryder’s character, Call, as a souvenir

…are examples of how far the series degraded. 

Unbelievably, this movie was written by Joss Whedon—yeah, the guy who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly and wrote and directed two Avengers movies. To say Alien Resurrection is the worst thing he’s done is probably no stretch (although I dunno about Age of Ultron), but even still, it’s not the worst Alien movie, in my opinion. 

What you always want out of an Alien movie at the very least are great creature moments. Alien has them, Aliens has them, Alien 3…kind of has some? Alien Resurrection once again has great creature moments. Though the aliens themselves are never that scary, the scenes they are in are still action-packed, and quite well-crafted. At one point, the group comes across a lab with all the failed Ripley clones, which are horrific mixes of human and alien, and one of them is still alive. This is one of the two best scenes in the movie. The other best is the ending, when the Queen alien spawns a human-alien hybrid referred to as the “Newborn”. This thing, whose sole appearance is in this movie, is truly unique and frightening. Within moments of it being born, it rips the Queen’s head off, establishing how dangerous it is, and then it goes after Ripley, who it thinks is its true mother. 

The ending is pretty much the same as the endings of Alien and Aliens, with the newborn creature getting blasted into space. But, they take it a step further: it’s sucked out through a hole in the window, which rips it to pieces in a gory effects display that’s both funny and scary. 

It could be argued which is the better (or worse) sequel, Alien 3 or Alien Resurrection. For me, they’re on a pretty even playing field, as far as overall quality and entertainment value goes, but are quite different kinds of movies. Given a choice, I’d rather re-watch Resurrection. It’s not very good overall, but for diehard fans, the creature scenes make it worthwhile, and the characters are, overall, more interesting than those of Alien 3.