Alien Resurrection
Year: 1997
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Starring: Ron Perlman, Winona Ryder & Sigourney Weaver
Runtime: 109 mins (Theatrical) 138 mins (Special Edition)
BBFC: 18
Published: 06/10/22
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Starring: Ron Perlman, Winona Ryder & Sigourney Weaver
Runtime: 109 mins (Theatrical) 138 mins (Special Edition)
BBFC: 18
Published: 06/10/22
‘Who do I have to fuck to get off this boat?’
Had this not been a direct quote from Alien Resurrection I could have passed it off as my exact sentiments whilst watching the film. Following on from Alien 3’s disastrous production, Fox were eager to keep the Alien franchise alive and with plans of an Alien vs Predator film not really gaining a lot of traction they wanted to go on with a fourth mainline entry in the franchise. The film seemed like it was going to be a real hit, with a script from Joss Whedon (who at the time was riding high with the success of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer), and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who’s previous projects had been reasonably well received, but would later go on to direct Amelie which would win over the hearts of millions). With Sigourney Weaver set to return and a cast packed with big names like Winona Ryder and Ron Perlman, Alien Resurrection should have been great…so what happened?
Two hundred years after the death of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), military science vessel USM Auriga have been cloning Ripley from DNA gathered before her death in order to create an army of Xenomorphs. The latest clone, designated Eight, is smarter and stronger than her predecessors and is kept alive following the extraction of her xenomorph.
When a group of mercenaries arrives on the Auriga to deliver a fresh set of victims to use for further xenomorph breeding and study, the caged xenomorph’s escape and begin to massacre the crew. Desperate to make it out alive, the mercenaries’ team up with the cloned Ripley to wipe out any xenomorphs they encounter and escape the Auriga before it collides with Earth.
Two hundred years after the death of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), military science vessel USM Auriga have been cloning Ripley from DNA gathered before her death in order to create an army of Xenomorphs. The latest clone, designated Eight, is smarter and stronger than her predecessors and is kept alive following the extraction of her xenomorph.
When a group of mercenaries arrives on the Auriga to deliver a fresh set of victims to use for further xenomorph breeding and study, the caged xenomorph’s escape and begin to massacre the crew. Desperate to make it out alive, the mercenaries’ team up with the cloned Ripley to wipe out any xenomorphs they encounter and escape the Auriga before it collides with Earth.
I cannot emphasise enough just how bad of a film Alien Resurrection is. Not a single component of the film meshes well with each other, and the result is something that reeks not only of studio interference, but also of the creative team making the film simply having conflicting interests for what the film should be. Whedon has stated that he wrote the script as a serious film, similar to the previous Alien films; but Jeunet wanted to make something more light-hearted following Alien 3’s extremely depressing tone. The result is shockingly awful, a janky mess of B-movie clichés, shonky dialogue, and phoned-in performances. This had the largest budget of any Alien movie so far, and yet it feels like a low budget fan film that was made for the Sci-Fi Channel.
For this review I watched the 2003 ‘Special Edition’ which is an extended version of the film, that also contains a number of alternate scenes. Interestingly Jeunet considers this version of the film inferior, though the differences between this and his 1997 original are negligible at best despite the extended runtime. It’s worth mentioning that though because the opening credits and final scene are dramatically different. In the 1997 original the film opens with a flashy title sequence depicting Ripley’s cloned body starting to take shape, which is a whole lot better than the Special Edition opening titles which show a random crew member aboard the Auriga squashing a frighteningly low-quality CGI fly, and then spitting it out of a straw onto a window of the spacecraft.
The ending of the original version just sees the Auriga crash into Earth, presumably killing all xenomorph aboard the ship and wiping out their species entirely. The Special Edition meanwhile actually sees Ripley and Call (Winona Ryder) on Earth, for the first time in franchise history, looking out over a destroyed Paris. Personally, I’m not sure which ending I prefer. They're both a bit anti-climactic, and whilst it’s cool to finally see Ripley make it back to Earth for the first time in nearly three-hundred years, we as an audience have never been given a reason to care for Earth in the Alien franchise, and now we see it’s destroyed?
For this review I watched the 2003 ‘Special Edition’ which is an extended version of the film, that also contains a number of alternate scenes. Interestingly Jeunet considers this version of the film inferior, though the differences between this and his 1997 original are negligible at best despite the extended runtime. It’s worth mentioning that though because the opening credits and final scene are dramatically different. In the 1997 original the film opens with a flashy title sequence depicting Ripley’s cloned body starting to take shape, which is a whole lot better than the Special Edition opening titles which show a random crew member aboard the Auriga squashing a frighteningly low-quality CGI fly, and then spitting it out of a straw onto a window of the spacecraft.
The ending of the original version just sees the Auriga crash into Earth, presumably killing all xenomorph aboard the ship and wiping out their species entirely. The Special Edition meanwhile actually sees Ripley and Call (Winona Ryder) on Earth, for the first time in franchise history, looking out over a destroyed Paris. Personally, I’m not sure which ending I prefer. They're both a bit anti-climactic, and whilst it’s cool to finally see Ripley make it back to Earth for the first time in nearly three-hundred years, we as an audience have never been given a reason to care for Earth in the Alien franchise, and now we see it’s destroyed?
Back to the actual review though, Weaver’s performance in this film is so weirdly overly sexualised that it feels like a horny teenage boy wrote her character (well, it was Joss Whedon I suppose). She wants to fuck everyone, and not just the humans either, there’s this weird sexual tension she even has with the xenomorphs. There was one moment I really did enjoy with her though and that’s when she discovers the room of failed clones. It’s one of only two moments where Resurrection could pass for an Alien film, and seeing her come to terms with just how many Ripley clones there have been and how few of them have been anywhere near successful is actually kind of cool. This never gets any further development in the film though, so it really is just a standalone moment in the movie where it feels like Whedon and Jeunet were on the same page. It’s never explained why they need Ripley either. Like why her specifically? To me it seems like such a massive plot hole that they're willing to clone and resurrect the only person who has successfully destroyed these aliens. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation like they can’t grow a xenomorph queen outside of a host body. But why then keep Ripley alive after the fact, it seems counter-productive.
This is arguably the worst performance of Winona Ryder’s career. Obviously now Ryder is most well known for being Joyce Byers in Stranger Things, and for a while being the emotional anchor of that show. In Resurrection meanwhile she looks lost. Most of the time it feels like she was just shoved onto set, had a camera put in front of her and just told to be angry or confused about something. Some of this could probably be attributed to the underwater scene which was the first sequence shot for the film (and arguably the best scene in the entire film). Ryder has spoken out about her intense fear of water before, and she’s also been honest about how being thrown into the deep end by starting out principal photography with an extended underwater action sequence did have repercussions on her mental health for a long time afterwards.
I’m not the biggest Ron Perlman fan at the best of times but here he’s just cliché tough guy douchebag. He also clearly doesn’t care about the role, because everything he does is either incredibly half hearted, or so overacted that only one of two things can be drawn from it: either he didn’t care, or he can’t act. I may not be his biggest fan but I’ve seen what he’s capable of, and it’s a lot more than this.
In fact, most of the mercenaries feel like prototypes for what would eventually become the crew of the Serenity in Whedon’s sci-fi western Firefly. They're crude and early versions of them, but you can see the basic framework and relationships in place here that are utilised in Firefly.
The rest of the cast fall into this similar category of being horrendously cliché and hamming up their performances. Arguably the only person who seems appropriately over the top for the film is Brad Dourif who plays a scientist that looks after the xenomorphs. Like he's definitely got mad scientist vibes so his hammed-up performance fits kind of well all things considered.
Resurrection looks and sound awful too. Horrible, low budget CGI is used at almost any given opportunity. Whilst people are often quick to slam the CGI used in Alien 3, this is far worse and far more frequent. The shots are also boring, or confusing because of the frantic editing. When mixed with the overly loud and generic action music from John Frizzell, it becomes practically unbearable to watch. Just nothing clicks with each other, every single component of this film from the script, to the performances, to the cinematography and editing, to the music, it all just conflicts with each other. I’ve never seen a film where all of the components are so mismatched and clunky.
Alien Resurrection can be perfectly summed up by the final fifteen minutes or so of the film. It’s stuffed with B-movie over the top deaths that make no sense, a new breed of alien is introduced only for it to be swiftly killed off before it can be a real threat, and the ending (no matter which version you watch) feels abrupt and unsatisfying.
There are rarely films where I say that there are no redeeming features to it, but Alien Resurrection is one of them. Whilst I do enjoy the underwater sequence, and Ripley discovering her clones, even these are not good enough to stand out amongst the mess of the rest of the film. Alien Resurrection is best forgotten about entirely, it feels so disconnected from the previous three Sigourney Weaver films that there’s really no point in watching it anyway, plus it was so poorly received it nearly killed the franchise off entirely until Ridley Scott returned in 2012 to direct the pseudo-prequel Prometheus. I wouldn’t wish Alien Resurrection on my worst enemy, and that’s saying something, don’t bother putting yourself through it.
This is arguably the worst performance of Winona Ryder’s career. Obviously now Ryder is most well known for being Joyce Byers in Stranger Things, and for a while being the emotional anchor of that show. In Resurrection meanwhile she looks lost. Most of the time it feels like she was just shoved onto set, had a camera put in front of her and just told to be angry or confused about something. Some of this could probably be attributed to the underwater scene which was the first sequence shot for the film (and arguably the best scene in the entire film). Ryder has spoken out about her intense fear of water before, and she’s also been honest about how being thrown into the deep end by starting out principal photography with an extended underwater action sequence did have repercussions on her mental health for a long time afterwards.
I’m not the biggest Ron Perlman fan at the best of times but here he’s just cliché tough guy douchebag. He also clearly doesn’t care about the role, because everything he does is either incredibly half hearted, or so overacted that only one of two things can be drawn from it: either he didn’t care, or he can’t act. I may not be his biggest fan but I’ve seen what he’s capable of, and it’s a lot more than this.
In fact, most of the mercenaries feel like prototypes for what would eventually become the crew of the Serenity in Whedon’s sci-fi western Firefly. They're crude and early versions of them, but you can see the basic framework and relationships in place here that are utilised in Firefly.
The rest of the cast fall into this similar category of being horrendously cliché and hamming up their performances. Arguably the only person who seems appropriately over the top for the film is Brad Dourif who plays a scientist that looks after the xenomorphs. Like he's definitely got mad scientist vibes so his hammed-up performance fits kind of well all things considered.
Resurrection looks and sound awful too. Horrible, low budget CGI is used at almost any given opportunity. Whilst people are often quick to slam the CGI used in Alien 3, this is far worse and far more frequent. The shots are also boring, or confusing because of the frantic editing. When mixed with the overly loud and generic action music from John Frizzell, it becomes practically unbearable to watch. Just nothing clicks with each other, every single component of this film from the script, to the performances, to the cinematography and editing, to the music, it all just conflicts with each other. I’ve never seen a film where all of the components are so mismatched and clunky.
Alien Resurrection can be perfectly summed up by the final fifteen minutes or so of the film. It’s stuffed with B-movie over the top deaths that make no sense, a new breed of alien is introduced only for it to be swiftly killed off before it can be a real threat, and the ending (no matter which version you watch) feels abrupt and unsatisfying.
There are rarely films where I say that there are no redeeming features to it, but Alien Resurrection is one of them. Whilst I do enjoy the underwater sequence, and Ripley discovering her clones, even these are not good enough to stand out amongst the mess of the rest of the film. Alien Resurrection is best forgotten about entirely, it feels so disconnected from the previous three Sigourney Weaver films that there’s really no point in watching it anyway, plus it was so poorly received it nearly killed the franchise off entirely until Ridley Scott returned in 2012 to direct the pseudo-prequel Prometheus. I wouldn’t wish Alien Resurrection on my worst enemy, and that’s saying something, don’t bother putting yourself through it.