Alien: Resurrection (1997)

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This one tends to be a bit of an anomaly for me. It's one of those movies that everyone and their mother seems to show a lot of hate towards, and often call it worse than 'Alien 3'. I have to say that to some degree, I get where people are coming from, but for the most part, I actually enjoy 'Resurrection'. I see it very much the same way I see 'Origins: Wolverine', in that really, it's not THAT bad... until something happens that just makes it take a left turn into a brick wall. But where I could classify 'Wolverine' as a guilty pleasure of sorts... I actually just plain like this.

Cards on the table, of course I'm the odd man out on this, and that's fine. I can recognize a lot of bad in this, but I have to say it gets a bad rap as a whole that I feel like it doesn't entirely deserve. And even in saying the same thing I said about 'Alien 3', I still kinda like this one just a bit better, all things considered. Again, though, I'm the odd one out here, so take my review with a grain of salt. This just might be one of those cases where I simply like a movie that, to others, is recognizably awful.

Taking place two centuries after the events of 'Alien 3', a group of military scientists find Ripley's (Sigourney Weaver) DNA within the prison in which she sacrificed herself. Said sacrifice was an effort to wipe the Xenomorph species out (or at least out of Weyland Yutani's reach) so that it couldn't be left alive to study, and be an obvious threat to the human race. This DNA is used to develop a series of potential clones of a not-just-Ripley, but a Ripley with Xenomorph DNA coursing through her veins on account of the one in her chest at the end of 'Alien 3'.

The process also manages to birth a very fast-growing Alien queen that the scientists end up raising on their own, and collecting its eggs for further study of this creature. The ultimate goal for Weyland Yutani seems to be to make these things incredibly effective biological weapons. Spoiler alert, however, because these scientists get what's coming to them eventually, as one would probably predict from the get-go. I find often in horror, you can point out who's about to turn into meat, and this is one of the more obvious cases.

As for Ripley, her new cloned self has a bit of Alien Queen DNA within her, and has become somewhat advanced, forming a psychic link with the other Xenomorphs, incredible reflexes and strength, and the signature acidic blood we've all come to know as a signature xenomorph feature, up there with vampires having fangs. She also becomes more empathetic towards the aliens, but she's also still half human. She's a total badass in this movie, almost leaning towards being bad, but she becomes more of a hero over time.

It's another matter of survival horror, but this time, involving a much bigger group. The scientists get a lot of abuse, but so do a group of humans who are being shipped in by a handful of mercenaries to be used for Xenomorph breeding - still a super disturbing scene, if you ask me. Said mercs; Elgyn (Michael Wincott), Johner (Ron Perlman), Christie (Gary Dourdan), Vriess (Dominique Pinon), Hillard (Kim Flowers) and Call (Winona Ryder) are just there to get paid, but soon find themselves on the run from the aliens, and entrusting their lives with Ripley, who Call knows full-well is an alien clone.

For me, the film provides a solid action adventure, complete with the proper horror elements, and half-decent banter between a group of characters as newcomer Joss Whedon tends to write so well. However, it all ends with some pretty over-the-top and bizarre stuff, including an alien-human hybrid, which is just plain disturbing to look at. There's a scene where Ripley falls into an alien nest, and that's about where it starts to get kinda bad. But up until then, I vote this movie to be altogether fairly underrated. But again, that's just me.

3/5

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