Tags:
Film: Alien: Resurrection
Year: 1997
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Writer: Joss Wheldon
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder and Dominique Pinon
Review:
This begins on a spaceship. We see a medical lab where there is a woman in a test-tube. The woman becomes fully grown and it turns out to be Sigourney Weaver, reprising her role as Lt. Ripley. It then goes to her being worked on by a surgery team. It is in the future so they are using robots. They remove an alien from her chest cavity. The doctor leading the surgery is played by Brad Dourif. The leader of this science team is played by J.E. Freeman. Dourif asks if they can keep her alive. Her vitals are good and Freeman allows it. Weaver wakes up and attacks one of the doctors.
The man in charge of this vessel is played by Dan Hedaya. The purpose of this mission is to use the alien that has been an unstoppable killing machine and study them, using what they learn to better humans. Weaver tells them that it will kill them all and brings up that the company has been trying to accomplish this for awhile. Freeman laughs, telling everyone that the company went under awhile ago.
There is another spaceship that is approaching this one. This one is privately owned ship under control by Michael Wincott. They are bringing a delivery. His crew has a science officer who works in the garage; she is played by Winona Ryder. Working with her is a paralyzed Dominique Pinon. They have muscle in Ron Perlman and Gary Dourdan. There is also a pilot played by Kim Flowers. They are all packing weapons, which are against the rules of the ship they board, but they are pirates.
Wincott and Hedaya do business together and the shipment is unloaded. It turns out to be people in cryostats sleep. Wincott has also worked out that his crew can get room and board for a few days before parting ways. Hedaya doesn’t see an issue with this either.
The crew runs into Weaver in the gym. Perlman hits on her, but ends up getting knocked out by her. They all try to take her down, but she is too fast and strong. There has been a by-product of her being cloned, which is what she is. We see that she has inherited their speed, strength and her blood turns to acid when it hits the air.
Dourif has created more of the aliens. The one from Weaver was a queen and he has created regular ones now as well. He trains one not to attack the glass, making the scientists believe they can learn.
Ryder breaks one of the rules that were set-up by Hedaya though. She breaks into Weaver’s cell. She is trying to kill her, but shocked to see that the alien is no longer inside her. When Ryder tries to leave, she is ambushed by soldiers. She is taken to where the rest of the crew is and they are held at gunpoint. A fire-fight ensues, with the pirates winning.
Three of the xenomorphs, the name of the alien species, are kept in a cell together. Two of them turn on the third, killing it. They did this to use its blood to escape. This is done with Dourif watching in shock. Now they are free and they begin to pick off the crew, one-by-one.
The military personnel escape in pods, but those that are left on the ship ban together to try to escape with many of which dying along the way. The main crew that is trying to escape is Weaver, Ryder, Perlman, Pinon, Dourdan, Flowers, Freeman and they also pick up a soldier that was in the gunfight in the gym who is played by Raymond Cruz.
We learn more about the terrible secrets of this military ship, which include the failed experiments of cloning Weaver. We also learn what the shipment that was brought by Wincott’s crew was used for. The group finds a survivor who is from the shipment who bands with them played by Leland Orser.
Can they get off the ship in time or will the aliens get them? When the ship is under duress, the auto-pilot system kicks in and makes the ship return to Earth. Will they be able to stop that or will the aliens run rampant? Ryder is housing a secret that will affect their plan. Also, Weaver received a gift from the xenomorphs, but since she was cloned, did they take one from her as well?
I have to say that this one unfortunately is not all that good. The story is okay and the acting is pretty good, but it can be really corny. There are some pretty solid death scenes. I didn’t mind the Weaver aspect of being super-human. I thought that gave it an added touch and it makes sense since she was cloned from blood they found. It also makes sense that they would have been intermingled because of that. After seeing the failed experiments it explains a lot as well.
Some things that happen in this don’t make a whole lot of sense though and that kind of ruined the story for me a bit. It can be a little predictable, outside of the secret that is revealed about Ryder. You get that there is something off about her from the beginning, but I wasn’t expecting what it ends up being. I was also confused about Weaver and the xenomoprhs. At times they seemed to be trying to kill her while other times they knew she was one of them. That got to be a little bit confusing.
This one is definitely the worst in the series, but if you like the alien movies, I would say to give this one a viewing as it technically is the last in the timeline of what is happening thus far. It isn’t horrible, but it also doesn’t live up to what the first two did. This one is more horror with a lot of sci-fi elements. If you want to see a bloody alien film, give this one a viewing. It also has two tough female leads with Weaver and Ryder, so if that is something interesting, then give it a viewing. I would say to not come in expecting too much though.
My Rating: 5 out of 10