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Intro:
This week I have been reviewing the Alien saga, due to the release of the ALIEN:
YAY, WOOHOO, YIPPEE! Directors Cut. And today it’s the turn of the film that makes
me wish I could call it the Alien trilogy. That’s right, time for the Resurrection...
Review:
Ripley dies at the end of Alien 3 (sorry for the spoiler). That causes a slight problem
for a sequel, as your main character is gone. But it’s okay, because they clone her.
Then...oh I can’t be bothered.
I HATE THIS MOVIE! I could just write that about 1000 times and post it, but that would be
lazy. And I don’t want to hate it. Joss Whedon wrote it. He’s done good things in his
career. We’ll ignore Titan AE for a moment, but there’s Buffy (film and TV show), Angel,
Toy Story and possibly some future goodness. This is just bad writing though.
Ripley died by falling in to a furnace in Alien 3. It’s kind of hard to get DNA from
that. I can buy that they had some on file, or that they got some from the infirmary
in Alien 3. BUT when you clone someone, stuff that is inside his or her body doesn’t
magically appear! If you clone me right now, the contents of the cup of tea and a biscuit
I just had will not be in my stomach. But Ripley’s little Alien queen gets cloned too.
That’s fuzzy science on a level that Voyager didn’t even stoop too. And somehow the Alien
DNA and Ripley’s DNA got mixed up. I can understand a little bit of blood getting mixed
together while it’s growing, but that DOESN’T CHANGE YOUR DNA! Otherwise women who are
pregnant would start being all freaky on a genetic level. It means that Ripley has a
bit of alien in her, and acidic blood somehow (why she doesn’t melt I don’t know) and
vice versa.
Stuff and Nonsense:
And the Aliens look terrible in this. I’m pretty sure they are all CG, though I could
be wrong, but they just plain look bad. Sure, they are shinier and sleeker looking but
they don’t look like they should be in place. And for the next bit of rant I need to
hit spoiler territory so if you haven’t seen this flop and still want to, skip the next
paragraph.
When the Alien queen gives birth to the half human/half alien it looks horrible. I don’t
know where to begin on this monstrosity. It does look kind of cute a couple of times, but
it just shouldn’t be. There’s no need for it. It’s basically a big pink alien, though it
looks a little like a baby dinosaur for some reason. And it thinks Ripley is mommy. WHY?
It just came out of, then killed, mommy. Ripley looks nothing like it. And if it’s going
by smell it’s covered in goo so it should STILL go for her. Animals latch on to the first
thing they see, and that wasn’t Ripley...
And there are also the. They actually provide a couple of the good things about this
movie. But they also contain one of the pointless characters. Why, oh why is one of
them in a wheelchair? It doesn’t aid the plot in any way. And the one moment it kind
of does, could have easily been achieved by having someone get shot on the leg and need
to be carried. It’s like an executive thought it would be politically correct to have a
handicapped person in the movie? And I can’t find any evidence that Dominique Pinon is
disabled either. He’s French but that’s not quite the same thing... If he is then fair
enough, I have no problem with disabled actors in ANY movie. But if it was just for a
gimmick give me a break!
Michael Wincott (Top Dollar from the Crow) is one of the good things about this movie,
of which there are roughly two and a half. He plays the lead mercenary, Elgyn, and is
finally more than a scratchy voiced bad guy (though he’s great at that). His character
is somewhat sympathetic, but gets hosed way too early.
Ron Perlman (#2 good thing, Dieter in Blade II) is the smart-ass who wants to sleep
with anything he sees, and shoot anything he can’t sleep with. He gets all the good
lines in the movie (there are plenty) and doesn’t get killed too early (or at all,
though I won’t say which). The character is basically the same as Blade II, tool.
And finally the half a planet thing. Ripley. Sigourney is good in this and she plays
the weird, slightly “Alien” Ripley quite well. If you look at it the way I did. I
assumed that the process of being cloned 200 years after you killed yourself, and
finding out you have saved the species you hate, and getting some of its DNA in your
blood makes you a little nuts. A little bit fruity. And that’s how it’s played.
Occasionally she’s a bit too alien, but generally it’s okay. And for a 48-year-old she
is pretty fine here too.
Oh, and Brad Dourif is good here too. He always is though so I won’t count it. That’s
like saying Lance Henriksen was good in 3, it’s a given. But that is IT. Some of the
sets are very pretty, and the movie is decently directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, a man
who hasn’t been allowed to shoot anything else in English before or since (bad
Jean-Pierre, bad!) but it doesn’t cut it. If your going to join a series that the
other directors are Ridley Scott, James Cameron and David Fincher you better be better
than decent.
Conclusion:
Maybe that’s the problem. The French killed the alien series with a little help from
Joss Whedon. This film is only in my house, and I’m betting the same goes for many
others, because it came in a box set with the rest and that was the cheapest way to
get them. I can’t think of why anyone would buy this separately. All together now:
one, two, three: ARGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!
That’s it for the Alien saga. I won’t be getting a chance to see the Directors Cut in
the cinema due to the aforementioned pub visit eating up all my funds. However, next
weeks big movie is MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS! This means a Matrix review rush for this week.
And yes I have tickets! Revolutions opens worldwide on Wednesday. Then I can take a
couple of days off, right? That would be nice...
MacGyver Rating:
2 out of 5 Planets
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