Alien Resurrection (1997)
★½ — Alien Resurrection (1997)
The fourth entry in Fox's Alien franchise arrived four years after David Fincher's divisive third instalment, this time with French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet in the chair, best known at the time for the darkly comedic Delicatessen (1991) and The City of Lost Children (1995), both co-directed with Marc Caro. It was his first English-language production, and his last until A Very Long Engagement in 2004. The screenplay came from Joss Whedon, then a rising television writer pre-Buffy, though Whedon has since been publicly candid about his dissatisfaction with how his script was handled on set. Dominique Pinon, a Jeunet regular, was brought across from France, and Winona Ryder, coming off a string of high-profile studio pictures, took the second lead.
Honestly? It’s the worst film in the Alien franchise by a mile. It’s tonally bizarre, ugly to look at, and just flat-out boring. The concept of cloning Ripley and giving her alien DNA is Weirdly fascinating on paper, but in practice it’s a mess. The script is laughable, the characters are annoying, and despite a decent cast, everyone feels wasted. I’ve genuinely fallen asleep trying to watch this three separate times. That’s not even hyperbole. It’s like someone tried to make a quirky French art film with Xenomorphs and forgot to make it engaging or remotely scary. And don't even get me started on that grotesque human-alien hybrid at the end, what were they thinking? Same thing that ruined Romulus for me. It’s all just so soulless and odd. A fitting title, because whatever made Alien special has fully resurrected as a shambling corpse here.
Rating: ★½ | Year: 1997 | Watched: 2025-04-10
Where to watch (UK)
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
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Physical: Amazon UK
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