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Alien Resurrection (Collector's Edition)

Alien Resurrection (Collector's Edition)

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: scare
Review: This is a crazy scary film with a big snotty green alien and women who kick the aliens butt. I enjoy this movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Theatrical Cut vs Expanded Edition
Review: I always thought this film worked well enough on it's own, except for the painfully miscast doe-eyed Winona Ryder and some dark humor that didn't fit in to the mix. Despite critical and commercial success, it took a beating from 'die hard' fans of the series who simply want all sequels to be a clone of Cameron's ALIENS. The newer version has some nice extended scenes (including a rather touching reference to Newt) and a better ending that promises ALIEN V, but the cheesy CGI insect introduction could've been left out, as well as other key CGI alien sequences. I have no complaints about the extras as there are hours worth.

One other reviewer (on the QUADRILOGY box Set) commented on what he perceived to be a mistake on the Extended Edition. He claimed that after Johner throws the knife into Vriess' leg that Vriess pulls it out and throws it at Johner, then Call (again) pulls it out and breaks it. The way the scene actually plays is that Vriess throws the wrench he was using at Johner, then Call pulls the blade out of Vriess' thigh and breaks it. Some people seem so quick to nitpick, when they obviously weren't really paying attention.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Woo Hoo! Fun for all ages....
Review: Forget all that idiotic psycho babble about some missed opportunity from another reviewer. Some creatures are just beasts who kill. We don't need to understand them and have a group hug. We need to toast their a##es. ALIEN RESSURECTION is pure popcorn fun. If you are expecting more than that I would be happy to recommend SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE or SENSE & SENSIBILITY...lol. AR has a great sense of humor which sets it apart from the other flicks in the series. Ripley is bada## and Winona is subtle but good. She has a great scene where she patches into the ships security system and goes over the P.A. saying something like "All aliens report to level four." Yah, you had to be there. Trust me, you'll enjoy this flick. Action, some laughs and freaky Aliens.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Resurrection is a fun movie!
Review: It has a lot of action and the crew of the Betty are likeable enough characters. People don't listen to the negative comments by some of these fools on here! This movie is way better than Alien 3 ever thought of being. If Alien 3 had been more like Alien Resurrection, I would not have been so disapointed by it. Alien Resurrection was just meant to be a fun action movie. If you want something as high class as Cameron's Aliens, get ready for Alien 5. Cameron has stated he will be doing this sequel and rectifying what Alien 3 did to his characters.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: it's worth to watch...but disappointing
Review: if removed all the previous 3, this one is still very good for entertainment and it's really suit for a hollywood movie. BUT, if compared by those previous three, this one is the worst one in my idea. This one is not scary at all. The worst I don't like is the final new-born alien, it completely change the image of the aliens. Anyway, some parts are quite worth to watch, I quite like the water part and the one when aliens kill each other.

director Jean-Pierre Jeunet did ok on this movie, but he did very well on AMELIE.

so my opinion, ALIEN is the best, then ALIENS, ALIEN 3, ALIEN 4
I still waiting for the 5th series, but please don't have that new-born alien.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Terrible Plot, Worst Characterization
Review: This movie is utterly ridiculous, and it cheapens the previous three episodes. The story "resurrects" Ripley after her death in the last film, making her sacrifice in Alien 3 for nothing.

The worst aspect, though, would have to be the characterization. Unlike the first three movies, in which the interplay of the characters supplemented their struggle against the aliens, the characters in Resurrection are two-dimensional, crude, and wholly unlikeable. I wanted all of them to die; everything about them is underdeveloped and unsophisticated.

If you're feeling self-sadistic, you should watch this film together with Jason X and then down a bottle of aspirin.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Good Film, But A Missed Opportunity
Review: This was a good movie -- but the writers missed a great opportunity to present science fiction with a way-things-ought-to-be theme. Life as it SHOULD and OUGHT to be.

These alien creatures attack and begin killing members of the crew on a space ship, along with some guests in transit and Officer Ripley. Ripley takes charge, and leads everyone in the effort to simply kill these creatures. In the end Ripley and her gang of cowboys prevailed, and all the creatures were dead.

The writers overlooked an excellent chance to demonstrate how life SHOULD be. When Ripley and her compatriots were first attacked, they should have asked themselves, "Why do these creatures hate us?" And then they should have spent a significant amount of time examining their own behavior, to determine what faults or misdeeds of theirs had provoked the creatures to attack and kill them. Next, Ripley and her bunch should have sought to form a coalition of some sort, dealing with a space equivalent of the United Nations, to pass resolutions against the creatures' violent behavior -- not against the creatures themselves, mind you, but only condemning their behavior. Then, they should have sent inspectors to the creatures, to monitor compliance with the resolutions. If the creatures had continued killing then, by golly, they could have given those inspectors more time.

THAT is how this story should have played out -- with the creatures living according to their own cultural/religious rules, and everyone else having to accommodate the fact that the creatures simply are going to kill/terrorize people from time to time. That is the creatures' culture, and it was up to the others to understand, appreciate and accept that culture. The sad fact is, Ripley and her people did not make enough of an effort to appease these creatures. They showed absolutely NO signs of tolerance, diversity, inclusion or compassion. Well, that's not wholly true. That character portrayed by Brad Dorff was extremely compassionate in his last scene toward the end of the movie, praising the creature as "beautiful, beautiful, beautiful" just before the thing bit off his head.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Great approach + bad landing = lost opportunity
Review: The accelerating level of greed of the Fox studios can be measured by the number of years between Aliens installments - 7 years between the first two, 6 years between the second and third, and 5 years between the third and this final (?) installments. But I digress . . .

As with the second installment, this one has an action movie feel and a tinge of humor that you would expect from a French director. The plot starts out as believable as any of the other films - the "Company" has taken a sample of the deceased Ripley's blood to genetically engineer a clone - Ripley + new alien queen. From the opening credits and a later sequence, it takes the Company many, many tries - but eventually they accomplish their goal. However, as it turns out, the new "Ripley" is 99% human/1% alien, and the new alien queen is 99% alien/1% human. As with all the installments, there is a great ensemble cast - including Winona Rider as a rogue android, playing upon Ripley's hate/love relationship with androids from the first two films. However, ultimately the film takes a plot turn that is all too frequent in sequels where there is a lack of creativity - too many bad guys (e.g.,'Batman & Robin' (a/k/a 'Batman On Ice'). Namely, the abrupt birth of the human-alien hybrid in the last quarter of the film comes across as quite contrived (both in terms of special effects and plot) and ultimately betrays the film, and for that matter, the franchise.

The producers could have used the genetic engineering topic to create a much more subtle, but effective, ending involving Ripley's character and divided loyalties, but they missed the opportunity. For that matter, they could have let the original director of 'Alien 3' make the movie he wanted to make (i.e., something not done in either of the first two installments - aliens on Earth), as the first two directors were permitted to do. In any case, 'Alien Resurrection' is nothing more than an average action/sci-fi flick.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Resurrection? Um...let me think...no.
Review: Alien Resurrection is the latest of the Alien sequels. The film was intended to resurrect not only the character of Ripley but also the series, which took a major bashing with Aliens 3. Aliens 3 was a total let down, a true bomb that left us unsatisfied at best. Especially for those of us who love the first two. Now, there's Alien Resurrection, and it turned the Alien series from something of a let down to a complete joke.

Let's see, where should I begin? Let me start with bashing Ripley's character. In a way, I can't blame the director of this film for wanting her character brought back, since she IS the Alien series to begin with. And Aliens 3 ruined it by haivng her chararacter die in the end, making another sequel with Ripley practically impossible. But leave it to sleezy hollywood to turn the impossible possibe, even when they should leave it be. Ripley comes back, cloned, only she's half Alien. So her blood is acid. Excuse me, how does a species that originates from another planet intersect, from a genetic point of view, with a human being? Answer: it can't, but this is sleezy hollywood.

Let's talk about the other characters. In short they are a bunch of buffoons. Space mercs or pirates (I don't really remember because this film never had my attention) that find themselves on a military ship with genetically altered Ripley and her children, which turn out to be her anvil-headed, slimey buddies: the aliens. Irony? No, just another typical cheezy hollywood horror movie follow up sequel. So these other characters, who serve no real point other than future victims, try to escape from this ship that starts to crawl with aliens.

All these characters, none of them, do we really give a hoot for. Ripley included. We don't like them, they are annoying half the time, or they have no depth. Winona Ryder is the stupidest of characters because she does little to contribute and just gets in the way most of the time. Her character does not intrigue me, it's boring, and her lines are lame. While Ripley has hardly any emotions, is super strong, and just makes a bunch of one liners. This isn't the Ripley we know and love, this is somebody or something else occupying Ripley's body and therefore we don't recognize Ripley in this clone. And Ripley, as stated earlier, is the series.

There is little to no suspense. Most of what one could consider suspense is so predictable, you know what's going to happen prior to it happening. Such as the alien coming up from the floor or having them escape at that is so easily detectable by anyone who has seen enough horror films or at least seen the other three in the series. This film does not scare me, the plot does not intrigue me, my attention span will span else where. This is a horrid film that attracts people to it just simply because it is part of the Alien series, which was made by the first two films.

Not to mention a pathetic ending with Ripley and one of her mutant offspring. By far the corniest part of this entire film was the end. The sign of a terrible movie is a pathetic twist in the end and the attempt to create sympathy towards a character we never felt anything from. We don't sympathize with Ripley like we did when she was stranded with a bunch of marines in a bunker in Aliens. Or when she's the only one coming to her senses as her entire crew gets wiped out in Alien. In Resurrection, we simply don't give a hoot about anybody in that film because no character development is attempted. So without good characters, a film such as this hoped to survive by either wowing us with special effects or corny twists, neither of which wowed me.

If you are or were hoping for another good Alien(s) movie, you'll go wrong if you think this one is it. This movie is the joke of the entire Alien Series. It has no suspense, no character development, and a pathetic plot that hoped to wow you with corny twists. Alien Resurrection fails to resurrect the series. They should've left it alone.

Grade: C-

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not high art, but a lot of fun...good popcorn movie
Review: No, it can't possibly live up to the first film which is a horror classic (more so than a sci fi film) and which re-set the look of most of the sci-fi movies for the following 20 years...changing the whole "2001-Space Oydessy" look of bright white/high tech to grubby and industrial. And it's not the stylish James Cameron thriller that the second film was. (Or the huge downer of the third film...let's just mutually forget that one.)

But try as I did to sneer, I had a good time watching this in the theater back in '97, and have seen it a couple of times on the tube since. I always get caught up in the action and the perennial appeal of the Ripley character and find I am having fun and two hours disappear.

Sigourney Weaver is just astonishingly good in this where you might expect her to have just phoned in an appearance. She looks amazing for how long has passed since the first film (18 years), and in this alien-hybrid form is seductive and threatening at the same time. You just can't take your eyes off of her!

Unfortunately, the filmakers didn't quite digest this, so they dragged in tiny cute Winona Ryder as the obligatory android-who-more-human-than-the-humans. Winona just doesn't look or feel right for this kind of adventure/action film and she slows things down. She isn't a good foil for Ripley, and her doll-like features and heavy eye-make up seem odd in a sci-fi universe where everything is so relentless gritty.

Much of the fun and good lines come from a grubby band of space smugglers (Michael Wincott {The Crow}, Gary Dourdan {CSI}, Ron Perelman {Beauty&Beast}, etc.) who bring a cargo load of cryo-sleeping tourists onboard to become alien snack food. This is a nice change from all the typical military stuff, but by the time we get a handle on who's-who amongst the crew of the pirate ship, they are quickly being gobbled up by the aliens themselves. So not much character development goes on.

Some jibes I can't resist....

1. The big medical ship where the action takes place is said to be in "unregulated space" at the beginning of the film. Then, when the aliens escape and the ship set to blow up, we are told it will crash into earth in THREE HOURS. 250 years in the future and we have only explored space in less than a three hour radius around earth? Also, when we see the CGI shots of the space crafts, they are apparently orbiting a planet with moons that looks much like Jupiter.

2. How can a clone retain detailed memories of the organism it was cloned from? How can a clone retain a PARASITE from the organism it was cloned from? Wouldn't this be like cloning someone and having them appear wearing the clothes they were in when they were cloned? This really doesn't make a lick of sense.

3. Why is the Auriga medical research lab so vast...and the Betty freighter so tiny (appearing to be about the size of our current space shuttles) that it can easily fit inside? Isn't that illogical? Wouldn't a space freighter have to be really big to economically haul things around the solar system? And a medical lab could fit into an ordinary office building?

4. Why IS everything so grubby? Don't they have soap or Formula 409? Why are all the hairdoes, clothing, music, TV, video games etc. the same as what we would find today? (The filmakers are not having one iota of fun here inventing anything futuristic, even though the action takes place more than 250 years in the future.) There is an amusing bit where some of the space smugglers are watching the home shopping network, but nothing satirical is implied here and it goes nowhere (except what great reception they get !).

Alright, I'll stop now. Despite this, and the feeling that you have seen everything from the monsters, the sets, etc. before...this is movie still has fun and a few good scares in it and a very enjoyable reprise by Signourney Weaver. Just go in to it with realistic expectations and I don't think you will be disappointed.


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