ALIEN RESURRECTION

I so wanted this movie to be good. I so wanted this movie to capture what was ALIENS. It's not. It tries to be, but it's not.

The plot centers around a USM black project to breed the aliens. To do this, a blood sample from the late Ellen Ripley is used to clone the species. After seven unsuccessful attempts, the eighth is seemingly perfect. They remove the baby alien from her stomach and Giger's most terrifying creatures return to life. But, what to do with the host? Let's just keep her alive, too. So, with Ripley #8 in a cell, the crew of the Betty, a small black market freighter docks with the USM vessel to deliver a banquet of humans in cryostasis for the hungry little aliens.

Soon enough, all hell breaks loose and its up to Ripley and the Betty's crew to save the Universe.

The movie tries to be ALIENS. Lance Henriksen's Bishop is replaced with Winona Ryder's Call. Aliens are sucked out of airlocks.

It just doesn't go together all that well.

First, in today's modern age of cinema, the world "miniature" is virtually forgotten. CG has replaced the time-honored craft of making little models. Well, ALIEN RESURRECTION uses models and after the level of realism with the CG in B5 and TPM, you really can't but help think the models look like models. The Betty is a beautiful design, and it works as a miniature, but the compositing is absolutely horrible.

My main problem with the movie was Ripley. She knew who she was. She had memories. Clones are but physical duplicates. There is no way for them to have the memory and knowledge from whom they are made. In XENOGEARS, because of intron encoding, each generation is imprinted with the most vivid memories of the father. That makes sense. But, when a speck of blood remembers that she died... It can't! When was the sample taken? Ripley knew she was dead. It had to have been taken prior to her fatal fall into the incinerator. If she had memories at all, it should only have been up to the moment the blood sample was taken.

Another thing is that people really died for no reason. The Betty's captain, Elgyn, was a western gunslinger type. I would have really enjoyed seeing him in action, but he is the first of the Betty to go. Come on, the cripple makes it out a live, but the gruff grifter is sucked through the floor boards? When all is said and done, I paused. I had to ask myself how did charas die. I did not remember.

Then, there is the location of the USM ship. It is outside of USM territory so that it can perform these experiments. So, it's got to be pretty far from Earth, right? Wrong. It takes three hours to return to the blue planet, and it's just lurching along. And, when it crashes, it appears to release a mushroom cloud that takes out all of South Africa, despite being a tiny ship with a crew totaling 50.

And, somehow Ripley and Call manage to survive reentry.

The alien-human hybrid is supposed to be the most awesome and frightening monster ever. It's laughable. An alien with eyes? I can't look at it with a straight face. H.R. Giger specifically didn't put eyes on the aliens. Without eyes, you didn't know who it was looking at.

The much-touted underwater scene was all of a minute long and contributed nothing to the overall plot.

Still, the movie had it's moments.

Brad Dourif was in it.

Ripley was constantly in motion. Subtle, it was amazing. She possessed a feral majesty. The constant shifting of weight and craning of her neck was alien. The few moments that she was still were absolutely terrifying.

And, when she destroyed the other clones, one of the Betty's crew commented that it was a waste of ammo. That was just what I was thinking. I think that was the only scene where Ripley used her flame thrower. There was actually very little shooting. And, every shot seemed to take out one of the monsters.

I would love to see more of Call. If there is an ALIEN 5, I would love it it center around her. I love Ripley, but she needs her rest. ALIEN RESURRECTION seemed to be the GENERATIONS of the saga. I feel that she should fade away before anything else happens to the character. Call is fresh and young. She is beautiful. I would love to see ALIEN 5 center around her, but after seeing RESURRECTION, there is a very strong question.

Why make ALIEN 5?