I was scared to rewatch Alien Resurrection. I first saw it when it hit theaters in 1997 and only remember the disappointment. Then, in the years since, it was perpetually at the bottom of any ranking of Alien movies. The prevailing thought, at least in my mind, was that it was bad. But I’d set a goal. I was sticking to it. and by the end of the film, I was smiling ear to ear, happy to have been completely wrong. Well, almost.
A new Alien film, Alien: Romulus, opens next week and in the lead-up, I made the decision to rewatch the original movies. Things started with Ridley Scott’s Alien, which is obviously a masterpiece, but then I got a little lazy. James Cameron’s Aliens is not just my favorite of the bunch, it’s one of my favorite movies ever so I’d covered that already on this site and figured I could skip it. I then watched David Fincher’s Alien 3, which I also hadn’t seen in full in some time, and was wholly underwhelmed. Plus, my colleague Cheryl Eddy already did a fantastic look back. Another skip. From there, and especially knowing Romulus was set between the first two films, was there even any reason to watch Resurrection? Especially with the expectation that it would be bad?
There wasn’t, but I’m glad I did. Admittedly, the bar of the Alien franchise is a little low once you get past the first two films. Even the biggest fans of the franchise can admit that. But after Alien 3, which has so much in common with the original, Resurrection feels like a huge breath of fresh air. Not everything in it works, and, in fact, maybe most things don’t. But I was constantly surprised and delighted at how it tried to push the ideas of the Alien franchise in new and interesting directions. It was much, much more than the basketball scene that seems to get clowned on everywhere.
Set 200 years or so after the events of Alien 3 (where Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley dies and kills an alien queen along with her), Resurrection starts with exactly that: the resurrection of Ellen Ripley. Of course though, this is not Ripley. It’s a clone and she was cloned because that DNA from 200 years ago included the DNA of an alien queen, which is what the evil scientists actually want.
Right there you’ve got a very cool idea. It’s Weaver as Ripley, but not really, and she’s now the mother of an alien queen… sort of. The idea not only lets Weaver craft a whole new version of her most memorable character, it opens the door for cross-pollination. Like the fact this Ripley shares traits with her alien offspring and, at the end of the film, we learn those similarities go the other way as well.
Within that framework, we get the standard band of ragtag characters who are ripe for the picking. And, thanks to director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, it’s a who’s who of fantastic character actors, like Ron Perlman, Dan Hedaya, Brad Dourif, Raymond Cruz, Gary Dourdan, and Michael Wincott. Then there’s the excellent addition of Winona Ryder—who at first we think is just a member of the crew but is later revealed to be the Bishop/Ash android character. It’s a revelation that doesn’t add a lot, but does make it more believable that she knows so much about RIpley, the aliens, their history etc. Plus Ryder seems to be having a blast.
Another thing I really loved about Resurrection is for the first (but hopefully not last) time in the franchise, we actually see a bit of what the military/scientists/bad guys plan to do to handle aliens if they get their hands on them. We see their cages. We see some experiments. And, of course, it all goes to shit. But after three movies where Ripley is battling against the idea of these creatures getting into the hands of people who want to study and weaponize them, it’s refreshing to actually see that in practice.
Some of what’s not so good about Alien Resurrection though is that the ideas are more exciting than the execution. (Of note, the script is credited to Joss Whedon before he was super famous, and long before those abuse allegations.) Once the aliens get out, the movie lacks much of the suspense and terror found in the previous films. Part of that is the dated CGI and part of it is the movie just doesn’t have a ton of time to spend killing off characters. One exception is a hilarious but fantastic sequence where our heroes battle some aliens in water. It’s totally ridiculous but fun and awesome.
Then there’s the ending, which takes the film’s biggest swing yet and whether it connects or not is really up for discussion. We learn that the alien queen Ripley birthed shares her human reproductive system so it gives birth to a human/alien hybrid. The hybrid then kills the queen and attempts to bond with Ripley. One half of this idea works because it’s so icky and imaginative; the other half doesn’t because it’s so under-explored, with a design that just doesn’t work. It’s the culmination of all the batshit insanity Alien Resurrection has been setting up, and while it has a gross and worthy conclusion, it never quite lands as hard as it wants.
And yet, Alien Resurrection is just so wild, entertaining, and ambitious compared to Alien 3, and the subsequent sequels, I have to applaud it. I’m not sure it’s a good movie and surely it has nothing to do with Romulus, but I’m glad to have personally reevaluated what most people think is the worst film of the franchise.
Alien Resurrection, and the rest of the franchise, is now streaming on Hulu.
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