Alien Resurrection 1997

Dragonleo reviewed Alien Resurrection (1997)

The Aliens' Best

This was an interesting one. I've never actually seen the prequels as whole movies, or at least I have no clear memory of watching them - maybe just parts. Still, I'm somewhat familiar with the events that took place in them, but even so, Alien: Resurrection was a bit confusing in the beginning. It all became clearer during the movie, so not a major flaw for viewers who might not be familiar with the content of the previous Alien installments.

Ellen Ripley is dead. Some starting point for the main character in the movie, huh? Yet the first thing we find is that she's alive again... Now what is going on?
Ms Ripley has been cloned in order to extract and research the queen alien inside her. As the extraction goes well and Ripley survives the operation, all seems well - what's there to worry about? After a group of smugglers arrive on the ship with an interesting cargo shipment and the aliens - surprise, surprise - escape, there's a lot to worry about. To add to this all, the ship, now overrun with aliens, is on a direct course to earth and all seems to be lost.
Yeah, no sweat, there's Ellen Ripley, this time, superhuman.

The fact that Ms Ripley has - due to the cloning or whatnot - acquired some alien powers, say, the trademark corrosive blood, quick healing and the ability to sense the aliens for example, made this movie a lot more entertaining for myself. After watching both of the Aliens vs Predator movies, I was tired of the humans dying one after another - at least in this movie it seemed that they knew how to fight back, even if it was a little. It didn't make the aliens any less threatening, but the alien vs human faceoffs a little bit more exciting; this time you actually had to wonder, whether or not the humans would die, unlike in the alien vs predator movies, in which the humans always got killed. It got boring.
Seeing that this movie was over 10 years old, the CG were really impressive - and going big for the visual side, I was really happy to see that. Sure, you could see some crude effects, but for a movie this old, it's more than understandable, and the general look of the visual effects was very nice!
Sigourney Weaver also pulled a good acting performance. She fit into the role well and acted accordingly - Winona Ryder wasn't too bad either.

This was definitely better than either of the Aliens vs Predator flicks. Maybe not my favorite kind of a movie, but not too bad either.

kombinaat reviewed Alien Resurrection (1997)

Talented Ms. Ripley

I remember the fresh exhilaration I experienced when this last proper sequel to the Alien -saga came to the theaters. I love the theme of the series - especially the way the future of mankind is portrayed. It's not often that I see a sci-fi movie with a depiction of the future that I actually like. But with this film, I actually hope I could see a broader picture of this future human society.

Alien: Resurrection was not as scary as the earlier parts - this was probably because Ripley was basically invincible from the start and the other characters didn't get enough screentime for me to establish a sense of compassion or to identify with any of them. That's why this movie best served my feeling of nostalgia relating to the earlier ones. Also, the setting for the movie was extremely interesting with scientists claiming victory over the Alien species. It was simply just nice to revisit the world of Ripley and the Aliens.