Alien Resurrection Review
by Thomas Skogestad (thomas AT chembio DOT ntnu DOT no)November 24th, 1997
Alien Resurrection
A Film Review by Thomas Skogestad
Directed by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Dominique Peron, Dan Hedaya Written by: Joss Whedon
(Re)viewed at Soria Moria 1, as part of Oslo internasjonale filmfestival (http://wit.no/filmfestival) Friday, November 21 1997.
Rating: ** 1/2 out of ****
This is the fourth entry in the Alien saga. I've never really liked Alien, but got a gigantic kick out of Aliens. Alien³ is perhaps underrated but I did not like all the tunnell running. And I didn't particularly like the cop out at the beginning.
The premise for Alien Resurrection (not the lack of colon (:)-, there is none on screen) is intriguing. Some blood from Ripley has been recovered and is used to breed a new mother alien. This I think is fascinating, but handled rather shortly in the film, though there is a rather explicit «hint» at previous problems. I'd like tosee more of this. But the purpose of the cloning is just brushed over and I get a feeling that this isn't really interesting for the movie. The cloning only seems to threre to serve as a setup for a remake of the earlier films. I.e. there is a lot of attacks and fights and people being killed. There is a scene that is reminiscent of the death scene in Alien³, and perhaps a character is a homage to both Alien and another Ridley Scott film (director of Alien) - Blade Runner (which I also dislike).
Of course the alien breaks loose, and get this - she is not alone. People have been brought on board to act as incubators for more aliens. All the aliens on the loose of course leads to a lot of people trying to escape. Things go awry and the spaceship the movie is set on reverts to emergency mode and is headed for a place we don't want the ship to go. This is perhaps meant to be a tense situation, but I never felt any kind of grip. We all know how things will end, don't we?
There are however several good action scenes, including one under water. The movie is directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet who did the visually wonderful Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children. I suppose some of his inventivness can be seen on screen, such as (bad) breath used to identify people. But really - the film doesn't go any further compared to those two movies. It is just technically very well done. The cinematography is by Darius Khondji, best known for Se7en (he also did Delicatessen and City). And just like in Se7en there is some gruesome violence, but most of it is just hinted at and if you blink you might miss it.
The movie about 1 hour 50 minutes. This surprisingly short. I felt that when the movie ended things were getting really interesting. But perhaps Alien 5 will pick up here... (And there are no crazy credits from what I could see.)
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