Dutch90 Alien 3 seemed like and should have been the natural closure of Ripley's arc, and the series as a whole. Ripley sacrificed herself to defeat her extraterrestrial nemesis, and finally found peace after being torn from her home, loved ones and even her own timeline. Alien: Resurrection resets all that by turning to the age-old sci-fi trope of cloning, allowing the deceased character to simply come back. To its credit, the film does try to add something new by returning Ripley as an alien/human hybrid. It is perverse irony that Ripley would end up, albeit partially, becoming the very thing that she fought for so long. Sigourney Weaver, while realizing the material isn't up to par with previous entries in the series (supposedly, she only signed up to stop Fox from making the long-teased Alien/Predator crossover, which they did anyway seven years later), does her best to make this new Ripley interesting by upping the ambiguity of the character - being part Alien, do we even know what side she is on? Still, it's easy to see why this self-aware, sarcastic and superhuman Ripley doesn't appear to core Alien fans - Ripley's appeal wasn't being badass, it was her everyman nature and her brave moral stance against corporate greed, to the point where she gave her own life in order to save humanity from the Company's ill-advised exploitation of a dangerous alien organism. This new Ripley doesn't really seem to care, and condescendingly recounts how she tried to save 'people' once. The film does seem aware of this to some degree, and deliberately casts Winona Ryder's Call in Ripley's old role as the determined anti-Alien crusader who tries to remind Ripley of what she once stood for (and initially distrusting her for being not human, which is somewhat ironic since she herself is revealed to be an android in a potentially interesting moral sub-plot that should have gotten more attention). The rest of the supporting cast do their best, but the script relegates them to stock characters - the evil scientist (Wren), the cool black dude who sacrifices himself (Christy), the amoral seen-it-all smuggler (Elgyn) and the unhinged brawler who just wants to shoot everything (Johner). Leland Orser's Purvis deserves mention for spending the entire film knowing he's going to die a horrible death, and ultimately redeeming his apparent expendability in a final sacrifice (that is, unfortunately, unintentionally funny in execution). The Aliens themselves have become your average slimy, roaring sci-fi monster, clumsily rendered through 90s era CGI for the first time, although the animatronics look better than ever save for an unneccessary color shift from blue to brown (thankfully corrected in Alien vs Predator) as well as excessive slime. Despite some changes, H.R. Giger's briljant design manages to keep them interesting. It's a shame, then, that the film decides to throw another human-Alien crossbreed into the mix in the form of the Newborn. Arguably one of the most hated elements of the film, the Newborn's main purpose seems to be present a new chief antagonist in the vein of Aliens' introduction of the Queen, and to serve as the punchline to the film's obsession with mingling human and Alien together, as if to say we're not so different from these terrifying monsters as we like to think we are. Given its quasi-innocent nature (it bonds with Ripley as its mother), its death scene seems unnecessarily cruel. But ultimately, the Newborn doesn't belong in the franchise - the Aliens are supposed to be a lethal force of nature, not something we can relate to. That is the human characters' job. Alien: Resurrection is by no means a terrible film - it's a fun, gory monster ride. It's just that it doesn't entirely seem to understand what it means to be an Alien movie, and would have worked better as a non-Alien film taking cues from the series than an installment of it. It's also sad that the series has opted for Predator crossovers and prequels/reboots rather than continuing the story, as Alien: Resurrection leaves us in a very interesting place: Earth. The series has never set foot on Earth before, and this leaves the story wide open for any direction. Will the Aliens finally reach Earth? Will Ripley 8 come to terms with her Alien DNA? What about Call's struggle with her non-humanity, analogous to Ripley 8? Sadly, we will never know. There were and still are plenty of opportunities for jumpstarting the series from this point, even fixing many of the mistakes that Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Joss Whedon made with Alien: Resurrection.

jacobsh-04936 When people think of the worst movie in the Alien saga, automatically what comes to mind is "Alien: Resurrection." While it is true that it is among the lesser Alien movies (Resurrection, Alien 3, Alien vs. Predator 1&2), it is honestly kind of a dumb masterpiece. What that means is while this movie may be really weird and off the rails and bloated at times, it has a certain charm and awesomeness to it that Alien 3 doesn't have. While I actually don't hate Alien 3, it is easily the worst of the main 6 Alien movies (Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection, Prometheus, and Alien: Covenant). And I feel fine saying that, even though many people might disagree with me. Even though Ripley is pretty bad in Resurrection, Winona Ryder makes everything better (I have a fairly big crush on Winona Ryder). So, haters, back off. Alien: Resurrection is a movie worth your time.

tomgillespie2002 Despite plummeting into a fiery furnace while carrying an unborn alien queen inside of her at the climax of David Fincher's messy- but-interesting Alien 3, Fox saw more money to be made in carrying on the franchise started by Ridley Scott back in 1979. For the fourth instalment, French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, hot off the success of The City of Lost Children, was brought in to inject some life in the stuttering series, bringing a unique aesthetic to the ongoing battle between us puny humans and the superior xenomorph. Sadly, this unique aesthetic is muted and ugly, perhaps even more so than the incredibly miserable Alien 3, and the European sense of humour and quirkiness Jeunet also brings to the table doesn't quite fit the tone of the Alien series. If this was a stand-alone, unconnected genre movie, Alien Resurrection may now be fondly remembered as an offbeat, cyberpunk oddity.It's 200 years since Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley sacrificed herself to finally rid the universe of the xenomorphs, but humanity's stupidity apparently hasn't wavered in that time. Ripley is cloned by some mad scientists from a single drop of blood, for the sole purpose of removing the queen inside of her (how the queen got inside her from the cloning process isn't quite explained), and turning its offspring into weapons and/or subjects of experimentation. She tells them, "she will breed, you will die," but naturally this falls on deaf ears. As the inevitable happens and the aliens free themselves from their cells, Ripley falls in with a rag- tag group of mercenaries. But Ripley is different; she can smell nearby aliens and seems to possess super-strength, and when she receives a jab to the face, her blood burns through the spaceship's floor. She clearly shares a bond and possibly DNA with her 'children', and the grizzled space pirates don't know whether they should trust her.Alien Resurrection is the worst of the franchise for two reasons. One is that the film is so damn ugly. Aside from the wonderfully weird moment in which Ripley writhes in the slimy tentacles of her 'daughter', there isn't one shot that feels truly cinematic. The sets look expensive, certainly, but there's a TV-quality running throughout, backed-up by a pre-Buffy the Vampire Slayer show Joss Whedon script, which often feels like a precursor to the wonderful Firefly. The second is the casting of Winona Ryder as daughter- figure Call. Ryder is a terrific actress, but every line she utters here is without conviction. She stands out like a sore thumb when sharing scenes with such reliable character actors as Ron Perlman, Michael Wincott, Dominique Pinon, Dan Hedaya and Brad Dourif. Jeunet amps up the gore factor, which is something the Alien series was never about, and neglects suspense and terror in the process. The climax is weird and disgusting, and may have been delightfully bonkers if this was unshackled by a franchise tag and was the director's way of letting loose with a generous budget. But this isn't the Alien I know and love.

PimpinAinttEasy Alien Resurrection is very camp and funny compared to the dark tone of the first three films. The alien has penetrated into the resurrected Ripley. In fact, she is part alien. Ripley does not look tortured or depressed anymore. A quiet strength has replaced the ruthless pragmatism.The film does tackle some existential questions like in the exchanges between cloned Ripley and the robot played by Wynonda Ryder. I liked the part where Wynona asks Ripley - how do you go on living despite knowing what you are? Ron Perlman is a great addition to the cast. This film was pretty good fun what with the scenes of the aliens attacking underwater and all. More big budget films should try to be like this. I am sure a lot of people would disagree with my 8/10 rating. But nobody can deny the fact that it was an entertaining film.