ALIEN RESURRECTION - REVIEW

Reviews have sure been harsh with this one. I mean, I never hear anyone mentioning this fourth instalment into the Alien franchise without them groaning under their breath and complaining about how Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the man behind cutesy rom-com Amelie (and much less cutesy Delicatessen) was the wrong choice as director blah blah blah...


Ok, lets make this very clear: Alien Resurrection is by far the silliest, most grotesque Alien movie pre-AVP. It's hard to contest that. I mean, this one goes where no Alien movie has gone before: Crazy Town. You've got clones, gooey Alien birth scenes, basketball, that weird-looking guy from every JP Jeunet film, the not-so-clever premise that a thin sheet of glass could totally contain some 10 foot alien monsters no problem and... 


SPOILERS  


Winona-bot! 


It's all-over-the-place, yes. But boy is it entertaining. A slow but involving build-up leads to the same type of walking-through-dark-corridors scenario Aliens was all about except this time Ripley's a human/alien hybrid clone thingy, Ron Perlman's there and everything's green instead of blue. I mean, I gotta say this is one dumb f***in' plot. You'd think after all that's happened no one would ever want to bring those scary-ass creatures back for ANY reason whatsoever but it turns out we humans get bored and need something to dissect, no matter how terrifying. Similarly, bringing Sigourney Weaver's hero back feels like such a stretch you actually feel like you're inside the studio executives' brains during the whole first act. Within the first 20 minutes we're asked to buy into a LOT of crazy shit...


A LOT of crazy shit... 

Once you do buy into it, though, you gotta admit it's pretty unique! I mean, that scene with the baby monster clones in jars and messed-up Ripley is all kinds of awesome, the Winona twist is pretty cool and the aliens are intimidating to say the least. Oh, also, all sorts of nutty, really funny shit happens: Ron Perlman shoots a normal-sized spider in the face (with a gun lol), some little alien mouth-within-a-mouth fella is used to push a button (clearly one of THE best uses for these mini dudes), a cocooned Brad Dourif starts talking about butterflies, one alien gets sucked into space through its own anus and Ripley flicks some of her own acid blood cum at us. 


What's not to like?!

Fine. I can imagine that if you're looking to watch a serious shit-your-pants badass Alien movie then this is probably not your best bet. Too many lols here to really take anything seriously. To the risk of sounding somewhat controversial, I would say that Alien Resurrection, despite not being the best of the Alien movies, is still one hell of a fun and interesting sci-fi flick in its own right. It's got that special quality that only really great, really random sequels possess where you're not sure where its going and where it's going doesn't really make sense but when it comes down to it: it's somewhere you'd never really expected to get to in the first place. Sure it ends with another alien getting sucked out into space... AGAIN but...

Come on: his anus literally EXPLODES!!! It's amazing.


Best. Ending. Ever. 

Watch it, just think of it more as a messed-up episode for an awesome Alien TV series rather than a sequel to Ridley Scott's quietly brilliant original. It's got some good, some bad, some very bad but tons and tons of lols. You can't go wrong. Well, you can but at least have fun with it.


Now to re-watch Alien 3...