Watching the Alien films in order continues. It’s interesting going through them back to back. We started on a massive high, plummeted, climbed back up. Where will Resurrection stand. The clue is perhaps in the title. This is a desperate reboot. We’re now 200 years on in the story, which is inconsequential really. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) has been cloned or… resurrected. She’s actually the eighth attempt at a hybrid human Alien created by a team of scientists in another dark mechanical complex in space. Honestly the future looks pretty bleak for our race through the eyes of this franchise. Essentially a baby in an adult body to start, but learning fast, Ripley holds residual tortured memories of her DNA’s past, but she’s dangerously strong. This will come in handy, as the real reason the scientists have been meddling was to use her as a vessel to create, yep you’ve guessed it… an Alien. The same Queen that Ripley killed when she dove into the molten lead at the end of Alien 3. Which is pretty cheap really. A reboot is one thing, but trying to nullify the last outing seems callous. So we’ve got some scientists who think they’re cleverer than they are. Ripley and her Alien baby making baby and… a crew of rogue sexually repressed spacedogs lead by Elgyn (Micheal Wincott). Who come aboard with some clandestine cargo for General Perez (Dan Hedaya) to aid his ultimate Alien weapon plan. The cargo are humans, the plan is to infect them. That’s the tone of this film. It’s much more unpleasant. Morally bankrupt. Nightmare fuel. The scientists aren’t going to put up much of a fight. That then leaves the likes of Johner (Ron Perlman), another macho yahoo base character with a thing for knives, his mate Christie (Gary Dourdan) and the rest of the visiting crew. It would be really dull, if not for Call (Winona Ryder) who’s new to the crew and has secret of her own. The set-up is brief but functional. The Aliens are soon loose and the blood bath begins. Aside Ripley and Call, these characters are very thin, not much more than cannon fodder, but the two stars have little to work with. The dialogue is terrible and Weaver hams it up as she phones in a big paycheck (the only way they got her to do this). It looks good, there’s lots of grotesque gore, the underwater scene with swimming Aliens is fun, but it’s gnarled cyberpunk style over substance. It tries to mask is frailties with a sub-plot or two, but it’s just fairly formulaic action horror. It’s by far the most disturbing of the four films to this point and for some those memorable moments will be enough. The finale is undoubted pretty gross. It’s a cynical cash in though, that bares zero resemblance to the film that spawned it. The best thing about it is the final apocalyptic shot of Blackpool.
5/10
Comments