 |
| Alien Resurrection (1997) |
Oh, boy. Well, I'll just lead with this: if you're going to break the rule-of-three and extend your franchise beyond just a trilogy, you better have a bloody good reason to do it. And that reason had better not be just 'money'. Sadly, it feels as though that was the entire motivation behind making this movie. Say what you will about Alien 3, but at least it was an ending. This movie actually challenges itself to spit in the face of that ending, and in doing so, completely ruin the character of Ripley. Oh, my f***ing God, what did they do to Ripley? Her story ended so beautifully, why did they have to ruin it? And, I understand that it's technically not the same person, but it might as well be. I don't know what they were thinking. They basically removed everything that made Ripley such a great character and turned her into... nothing. Like, why did they try and sexualise her? They didn't go so far as to put her in a skimpy outfit, but some of her lines and subtext around what she was doing really made it feel like they were trying to sexualise her. Just... just completely missing the point of the character, that's fine. Sigourney Weaver tries her best, and there are one or two scenes that are somewhat compelling with her character, but even still, this was by far the biggest disappointment in the movie.
 |
| Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley |
Oh, wait, hang on, it's a tie. The Xenomorphs. The f***ing Xenomorphs. Way to make the most dangerous, threatening and terrifying monsters in cinema and reduce them to bland, repetitive, generic creatures. It's not even that they don't try to do anything new with them, because the new stuff they try is also garbage. Also, 'try' is a bit of a stretch, since the filmmakers clearly didn't. In every single other Alien movie (and in every good horror film), they kept the reveal of the creature itself as something of a secret until the third act. Until the third act, you never get a clear look at the monster, and that's something that builds the tension. Fear of the unknown. The 'Jaws' effect. And, it doesn't matter that we've all seen Xenomorphs before, they should have employed the same tactic to show they were at least trying. But, nope. The first 10 minutes and we see practically everything. The Face-Huggers, the Xenomoprhs, the Queen herself. No build-up, no suspense, no effort. And the film even contradicts so much of the Xenomorph lore, like when Ripley is able to pull the Face-Hugger off her without it killing her, which is what would have happened in the first movie. Or, how about the many times where Alien blood is sprayed all over and the acidic properties of the blood just... don't happen? At least the practical effects still look great. Shame about the overused crappy CGI.
 |
| A Xenomorph |
I'll give the movie this: there are one or two moments where the film expands on the lore of the world outside of the Xenomorphs, and those moments were genuinely interesting. But, still, I would rather the characters have been genuinely interesting. Holy crap, talk about cookie-cutter personas. I couldn't tell you the names of anyone in this movie. Not a single character was likeable, except for the guy in the wheelchair, he was alright. Everyone else? Don't hold your breath. Even Winona Ryder, who I love as an actress, can't save her character. She has a few quips here and there, and they build her up as a rebel of sorts, but beyond that? Bland, bland, bland. In previous movies, I felt bad when people died. Here I just felt indifference. When you can make the supporting cast of Alien 3 look like well-developed characters across the board, you know you've f***ed up.
 |
| Winona Ryder as Annalee Call |
And the inconsistencies? Oh, my God, the inconsistencies. Everything in this movie seems to contradict either previous movies or just, you know, reality. I mentioned the Alien blood thing from earlier, but what about when that guy gets shot 5 or 6 times in the chest but just keeps walking? Yeah, that moment. Or when the movie fails to understand how explosive decompression works? Or when the entire cast is somehow able to hold their breath for around 2 minutes, including the people with no training? Or how the movie thinks that cloning people somehow restores their memories as well? Or when characters just appear out of nowhere to solve a problem and it's never explained? Like when Winona Ryder's character saves everyone even though she shouldn't have been able to get there in time? I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, I haven't seen this many plotholes since Man of Steel. And if you read my Man of Steel review, you know I devoted about 3 paragraphs to the inconsistencies in that movie, so I do not make that comparison lightly. When your movie doesn't understand how reality works? I'm sorry, but that's inexcusable.
 |
| Dominique Pinon as John Vreiss |
In the end, one character, a few good performances and some nice practical effects stop Alien Resurrection (1997) from becoming my second 0 out of 10 movie. It tried, though. It really tried. 1/10.
Tomorrow: *sigh* It's Eclipse.
No comments:
Post a Comment