Alien 4

Alien 4 : Ressurection title

Alien 4 : Ressurection Now this is more like it. For the fourth instalment in the Alien saga, the producers decided to hire French director Jeanne-Peare Junet, who had previously directed the black comedy "Delicatessen". It was hoped he would bring a fresh approach to the saga, considering part 3 was such a terrible flop, and fortunately for us it worked.

Set some 200 years after the events of Alien 3, Ripley (played once more by Sigourney Weaver) is brought back to life by a couple of mad scientists (played by J.E. Freeman and horror veteran Brad Douriff) on board a secret government space station using a bizarre cloning process, which also duplicates the alien queen embryo inside her.

The government wish to use the alien queen queen to provide them with alien creature specimens, that they can study and experiment on in the hope of using them as biological weapons (Bad Idea). Of course things go terribly wrong and the aliens break loose.

Ripley subsequently finds herself teaming up with a group of space mercenaries, led by a chap named Elgyn (played by notorious screen baddie Michael Wincott), who are also stuck onboard the station with the alien menace. Leading to a series of running battles as they try to fight their way through the space station to their ship.

Whilst the film isn't quite as good as the first 2 movies, it's certainly a great improvement over the third. I particularly enjoyed the introduction of Winona Ryder's character as an android member of the mercenary crew, as well as the twist in Ripley's character, who's inherited some of the aliens DNA in the cloning process, complete with acid blood and black fingernails. The type casting of Micheal Wincott and Brad Douriff as bad guy and mad doctor respectively also seemed to work quite well.

There's also some great action scenes - most notably where the cast have to fight an underwater battle with the creatures - as they attempt to swim through a flooded section of the station. There's also a better feeling of tension than the previous film, combining the suspense of the first, with the rousing action of the second.

Overall marks : 6/10.

Other Information.

The first draft of the script contained an action sequence that took place in a garden contained within the spaceship "Auriga," with Ripley driving an electrically-powered jeep to avoid aliens attacking from all sides. This was to take place after the scene in the chapel but before the sequence where the Newborn is introduced. The sequence was cut due largely to budget constraints.
Sigourney Weaver actually made the behind-the-back half-court basketball shot on her own, despite the fact that the way the ball disappears off screen for a split second before going into the basket implies that she had off screen help.
Actor Ron Perlman, who is probably best known for his role in the 80's TV show "Beauty and the Beast", nearly drowned while filming the underwater sequence. At one point, when trying to surface, he hit his head on a sprinkler in the ceiling, knocking him out cold. He was rescued by nearby film crew members.
Horror veteran Brad Douriff is probably best known for voicing "Chucky" in the "Child's Play" series of movies.
Script writer Joss Whedon apparently went through five different versions of the final battle with the "Newborn" creature, the first four versions of which all took place on Earth, in such settings as a hospital maternity ward, a giant junkyard, a snowy forest a cliffside, and a desert.
Nigel Phelps based the design of the spaceship "Betty" on a jackhammer. The "Auriga" was originally to be a vertical structure, but he abandoned this idea once he realized the difficulty of capturing the scope of such a ship design on film
There were several scenes cut for time or pacing reasons, or because the director didn't like them, which are included on the 2-disc DVD special edition version released in 2004. Most notable of which are an alternate intro showing a soldier in a room in the Auriga swatting a bug, and a different ending where Ripley and the other survivors actually land on Earth next to a post-apocalyptic Paris. This version is not favoured by the director though, who prefers the theatrical cut of the film.