Blu-ray Review: Alien: Resurrection (1997)

"The worst movie in the series, by far."

(aka Why?)

Release Date: November 26th, 1997.

Country: USA.

Rating: R.

Written by: Joss Whedon.

Directed by: John-Pierre Jeunet.

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Michael Wincott, Brad Dourif, and Leland Orser.



That's not to say that Resurrection doesn't have its moment's because it does, but it's such a tonal mess that it's hard not to rip on it.



Joss Whedon, who wrote the movie, has not been shy in his criticism of the final thing, bashing the casting, line delivery of the characters,and basically everything else about the movie. He has a point with his criticisms, but his script is to blame for more than a few of them, so really Joss, why are you bitching.



Watching this movie now, it feels like Whedon's TV show Firefly, only with Aliens in it. And that is a mixture that doesn't quite take here.

200 years after the events of Alien 3, Ripley has been cloned by a gang of evil space scientists aboard the spaceship Auriga, in hopes of getting their hands on the Alien Queen that she had growing inside of her when she did the swan dive into the molten steel back on Fiorina 161. After a few botched attempts, they finally clone her properly, remove the alien from her chest, and set to using the Alien DNA to perform all kinds of scientific miracles, because they are the perfect organism. They also want an Alien Army, because why wouldn't they?

THE MONSTER'S MOTHER.

Enter the Firefly-like crew of The Betty, the decidedly Firefly-like ship with a Firefly-like name, who arrive at The Auriga to deliver some humans for Alien Implantation. They're sassy and foul-mouthed smugglers, save for Call, the quiet girl who seems out of place, which there's a reason for.

IT'S LIKE A PROMO SHOT FROM A TV PILOT.

When the Aliens escape their containment, it's every man for themselves, but lucky for everyone that Super Ripley is there to save their asses, because she's got some keen insight on the Aliens now, since she had one inside of her. 

THIS WAS PRETTY MUCH US WATCHING THIS MOVIE.

This isn't a very good movie, especially not for an Alien movie, but it is enjoyable enough as campy fun. It's got plenty of action, lots of gore, and some actors who elevate the shoddy material with their presence alone.



Ripley is cool in this movie. She's not really "human" anymore, so she's kind of relaxed and detached from things, and almost nihilistic. She's also way tougher and stronger, which makes her a better ass-kicking machine.



Ron Perlman was great, as he always is, as Johner. Same goes for Brad Dourif, awesome as always, although his was a smaller role. It really sucked that they killed Michael Wincott's character off so soon, because he's so great and underrated, but he was awesome too.

THIS GUY.

The problem with this movie is that it plays like any other Space Horror flick that copies off of Alien (1979), instead doing something worthy of being a sequel of that classic. Joss Whedon's script is the main culprit, giving us one-dimensional characters who fire off lines like "Earth, man. What a shithole." He tried to make it witty and hip like Buffy or Firefly, and it just didn't work here.



And how long were they under water, swimming, fighting aliens, screaming and struggling, without taking a breath?



It also didn't make very much use of the whole Earth aspect of the flick; ***SPOILER*** When they finally get to Earth, we see that they've landed in Paris, only Paris looks like a destroyed bunch of ruins. I never got the impression that Earth was supposed to be destroyed like that, and maybe that's just something they came up with for this movie, but it begs a lot of questions and leaves us, the Alien fans, wanting.



It's also not a very scary movie, like its predecessors. It focuses much more on quips and action beats, which is really what Joss Whedon does best.



And as good as Wynona Ryder is in general, she was way out of place in this movie.

THE ALIENS SWIM NOW. OF COURSE THEY DO.

Whoever came up with that mongoloid Human-Alien hybrid thing, or maybe it was whoever brought it to life on-screen, dropped the ball. It looked silly, and it made us laugh with its little puppy-like whimpers and sad eyes.



It's cringe-worthy.

WHO DID THIS? AND WHY?!?

This movie at least delivers the gory goods, and some truly out-there set pieces.

AND THE ALIENS, AS ALWAYS, ARE COOL.

No, but Joss Whedon made sure to add plenty of lesbian subtext between Ripley and Call, which really felt out of place and kind of lame.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE MOVIE THO.

If this wasn't an entry in the Alien franchise, I could honestly say that it's a pretty fun flick. It is though, and viewing it as such just makes the whole thing seem like a half-assed cash-in attempt.



D+



Alien: Resurrection is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

Ryder, indeed.

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Blu-ray Review: Alien 3 (1992)

"The Assembly Cut makes this one a better film."

(aka A Tale of 12 Writers.)

Release Date: May 22nd, 1992.

Country: USA.

Rating: R.

Written by: Vincent Ward.

Directed by: David Fincher.

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Lance Henrisksen and Pete Postlethwaite.



This is the bastard child of the Alien series, and I say that not because it's viewed as the worst Alien movie made (that honor goes to Part 4), but because it's actually a good flick that never got a chance to shine.



David Fincher used to direct music videos, and I mean prolifically. Throughout the 80's and 90's he helmed videos for Foreigner, Sting, Paula Abdul, Madonna, Aerosmith, and the list goes on. He went on to become one of the best film directors that we have, giving us top-notch flicks like Se7en, Fight Club, The Game, Zodiac, The Social Network, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.



His first film was Alien 3.



This movie had production issues from the start. It was re-written a few times (some of the originally story arcs were cool); Siguorney Weaver said she'd do the flick, but it had to have no guns (she's like that); Renny Harlin, the original director, quit to go make Die Hard 2; the next director was fired; and when they finally got a director to stick, the "Music Video Guy" David Fincher, the film was so bastardized by studio execs by then, that the result was a movie that didn't resonate well with most people, especially said director.



So when I decided to watch the movie again to review it, I watched the 2003 Assembly Cut, which is about as close to a Director's Cut as we'll ever see, seeing as how David Fincher has pretty much disowned the movie and wants nothing to do with it.



And it was really good.

Not long after (presumably) the ending of Aliens, The Sulaco catches fire, and Ripley, Hicks, and Newt are jettisoned from the ship in an escape pod while in deep cryo-sleep. The pod crashes on a desolate planet, with Ripley being the only survivor. A guy finds her on the beach, covered in lice, and brings her back to his home.

MAN, SHE JUST CAN'T CATCH A BREAK.

His home is a prison full of rapists and murderers, and it's soon clear that the arrival of a woman is not such a great thing. Distraught at learning of Newt and Hicks' deaths, she frantically demands that they do an autopsy on Newt's body, fearing that a Xenomorph had something to do with the crash. With all the shit that she's been though, she has a right to be paranoid.

AND THE RIGHT TO SHAVE HER HEAD.

Turns out that there is an Alien on the planet, but it's not inside of Newt. It finds a host, grows up quick, and begins to make snacks out of the prisoners. Ripley, along with a few of the "good" prisoners, devise a plan to kill the thing, and they spend the rest of the movie running around trying to survive so that they can execute said plan. Ripley also spends a lot of time trying not to get raped.



Shades of the first movie ensue.

"GIVE ME A KEEEES!"

I can finally say that Alien 3 is a good movie without cringing and feeling like I'm being overly-generous.



The Assembly Cut adds 25 minutes to the move, adding some footage, getting rid of some other footage, and the end result is a better, deeper, more cohesive movie. The first act is a way better set-up, visually, and character-wise, as far as the prisoners and Ripley go; the Alien comes out of an ox instead of a dog; the creepy inmate Golic, and his demise, get way more screen time; and Ripley's final scene is different, and way less cheesy.



It's finally a cohesive movie, and one that works way better than its theatrical counterpart. Overall it plays just like first Alien movie, utilizing the stalk-and-slash thing to deliver the Horror, but it does so pretty well, and in some places, it's fantastic.



The cast here is the real standout, with brilliant actors like Charles Dance, Pete Postlethwaite, and Charles S. Dutton making their prisoner characters anything but standard. They're a treat to watch in anything, and especially so here. Sigourney Weaver is effective again as Ripley too, but that's nothing shocking.

HE LOOKS WAY TOO HAPPY HERE...

The CGI in this movie was bad. Granted, it was made in 1992, and CGI was nowhere near what it is today, but still it's distracting to watch, even given the restraints of the time.

THERE'S NOTHING WORSE THAN BAD GREEN SCREEN.

The way that they wrote out Hicks and Newt was cheap and completely shitty. I know there were a lot of production issues with this movie, but you don't nullify the ending of Aliens by killing the happiness of it.



Michael Biehn was pretty pissed about it, and he deserves to be.

LANCE HENRIKSEN SHOWED UP THOUGH.

This one is way bloodier than the first two, including a messy autopsy scene. 

AND A FULL-GROWN CHESTBURSTER.

Nope, but there is some sexual content, if you want to call it that.

WHO COULD RESIST HIS CHARMS?

"You've been in my life so long, I can't remember anything else."

"I gotta "re-educate" some of the brothers!"

SO PENSIVE.

If you watch the Assembly Cut, Alien 3 is a move that is closer to being the sequel that Aliens deserved. It's still not perfect, but it was tinkered and tampered with so much by idiot hands, that it never really had a chance to be. Fincher makes the best of it though, and it's a fine addition to the franchise.



It is a shame though that we'll never get to see what could have been, had they let Fincher do what he wanted to with the film.



B- (Assembly Cut only, otherwise it's probably a C-)



Alien 3 is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

They were originally going to use a dog to play the "Dog Alien." He looks thrilled, doesn't he?

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Blu-ray Review: Aliens (1986)

"Mother vs. Mother."

(aka Game Over!)

Release Date: July 18th, 1986.

Country: USA.

Rating: R.

Written by: James Cameron and David Giler.

Directed by: James Cameron.

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser and Carrie Henn.



If anyone was going to follow-up the Ridley Scott classic and do it any justice, it was James Cameron.



Fresh off his work on another genre classic, The Terminator, Cameron took the reigns of the Alien franchise and pumped it full of adrenaline, made it bigger in scope, and far more frantic.

57 years after the events of the first film, a salvage team finds Ripley's escape craft, where she's deep in cryo-sleep. Back on Earth, she's raked over the coals by corporate assholes who want to hold her responsible for blowing up The Nostromo, and she finds out that her daughter grew old and died while she drifted through space for 60 years, so to say she's not happy is an understatement. At least she still has Jonesy.

BUT ALAS, JONESY HAD TO BE PUT DOWN FOR CRYO-DISTEMPER.

The moon of LV-426 has since been colonized, because that's what corporations do, and when the company loses contact with the people of the settlement, they immediately ask Ripley to head back there as an advisor to a group of Colonial Marines who are tasked with finding out what happened. She agrees to go, so long as they promise that they're going to destroy whatever they find there, and not bring anything back to study.

STOP STUDYING IT!

Things don't go well for anyone on LV-426, mainly because the Aliens rule the planet thanks to their Queen Mother, who gives birth to them like her vagina is a clown car. They find a little girl named Newt who Ripley takes an immediate shining to, and when they find themselves trapped on the planet, with a horde of Aliens descending on them, it looks as if Ripley is going to lose another "daughter."

LOOK OUT, GIRL!

You really think that Ripley takes that shit lying down?

 OH HELL NO!

As with Alien, what's not good about Aliens?



Alright, maybe it ditched the Haunted House creepiness that made the first one such a classic, but it gave us it's own brand of terror in an all-out Human vs. Alien war, which had us biting our nails just the same. The thought of there a seemingly endless swarm of Xenomorphs upped the terror factor and then some. And the action was awesome. I mean, Vasquez yelling "let's rock!" and lighting up the aliens, even though doing so could have caused the whole place to go up, was just bad-ass.



The cast is even better this time out too, with Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton giving us two of the most memorable characters in all of movies. Bill Paxton was especially scene-stealing as Hudson, with his one-liners, he practically stole the movie. God he was such a talented guy. R.I.P.



The story also took a deeper turn with Ripley finding out that her daughter died while she was in deep cryo-sleep, and then finding Newt and deciding that she was going to care for the girl. The whole surrogate mother thing added a ton of weight to the story, especially the showdown at the end with the Queen Alien.



"Get away from her, you bitch!" will always one of THE best and most iconic lines ever spoken on film.

THEY SHOULD HAVE MADE A SPIN-OFF PREQUEL ABOUT THESE TWO. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT.

Too many cool characters died in this one.

THIS IS RAPHAEL. HE WAS JUST PROTECTING HIS MOM WHEN SOMEONE MOWED HIM DOWN WITH A HAIL OF BULLETS. #STOPTHEMADNESS.

The way things ended up in Alien 3 made this ending bittersweet... unless of course you just pretend that the series ends with Aliens, then it's all good.

"MOOOSTLY."

There are some great practical effects in this film, featuring the Aliens in different stages, a magnificent Queen Alien, and even some cocooned people. There's also plenty of bloody death to be seen, of both the human and alien variety.

"YOU'RE GOING TO DIE HERE. SORRY."

Nope, just the naked Aliens again.

BUT HICKS WAS SCHEMING ON THAT ASS SINCE THE FIRST DAY.

"Get away from her you bitch!"

"That's it man, Game over, man. Game Over!"

"Why don't you put her in charge!"

"They mostly come at night. Mostly."



"Have you ever been mistaken for a man?"

"No, have you?"

"RAWR."

It's rare that a sequel comes as close to being as good as the first movie, especially when that first movie is as perfect as Alien was. Somehow though, James Cameron managed to match the original for quality, and some would even say surpass it in every way.



What an excellent 1-2 punch these first two flicks make, and by itself, Aliens is a stellar example of Sci-Fi done right. 



A+



Aliens is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

We still miss the hell out of this guy.

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