Alien: Resurrection (1997)

Well, we're rounding out our journey through the Alien series. It's been a nice ride. In the days leading up to watching Alien: Resurrection, I kept finding out awesome but unexpected things about it bit by bit. First I saw that Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, and oddly enough, Dominique Pinon were all in it. Then I learned that Jean-Pierre Jeunet directed it. Then the opening credits reveal that Joss Whedon wrote the script! This movie had a lot going for it from the start, and did a pretty good job with these elements. 200 years after the last film, and however many centuries after the beginning, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is cloned by evil scientists, who mix her DNA with the alien's, giving her superhuman strength and healing plus a psychic connection to the creature.

Her body hatches the new queen but she survives, and the scientists work with the military to study and experiment on the aliens, and not long after, a mercenary crew that includes petite-but-fiery Call (Winona Ryder), wheelchair-bound Vriess (Dominique Pinon), gun-happy Johner (Ron Perlman), and interestingly-tressed Christie (Gary Dourdan) arrives. Call knows the history of Ripley's experiences with the company and the alien, and intends to kill all the alien specimens locked away on the space station before they can do any more damage. Of course they escape their cells to wreak havoc on everybody, so Ripley teams up with the mercenaries to destroy the creatures. Her weird alien genes and connection to the queen make her suspicious to the others, but her mad skills make her integral to their survival.

A thing about all the other Alien movies is that I've disliked almost every character except for Ripley (and Michael Biehn, obviously), so it's never been a big deal that everyone's always dying. With Resurrection, I actually liked a lot of the main characters, and I feel we get a lot more time with them and get to know them better. This increased attention to characterization is aided by the awesome cast, with everyone having a pretty fun time with their roles. Ripley is a bit unnerving, but that's appropriate since she's part alien and hasn't had much human experience (having been grown in a lab and locked in a cell). I liked that the possibility of her betrayal was ever-present, because it gives the whole story good tension.

The plot itself is alright, but really just more of the same. The scientists/government/military are still self-destructive idiots, the alien is still scary and abnormally reproductive, Ripley is still super badass, and there are still a bunch of people stuck in an enclosed space with alien monsters chasing them. It's entertaining, but not as memorable or thrilling as the first two films. I think the terrific cast is really what makes it. Jeunet's direction isn't as daring or colorful as I'd expected but that's understandable considering he didn't speak English at the time, and the script is decent but Whedon isn't as clever here as when he's writing his own material. Nevertheless, Alien: Resurrection is an engaging and exciting entry into the series, and much better than its predecessor.

4/5