i'm an avid fan of the " alien " saga , so this review is obviously a tad biased ( at least i admitted it ) . of course , that doesn't mean that i'm gonna be giving this a four-star review or something , because " alien : resurrection , " the fourth film in the cool-as-hell series is not an absolutely amazing film , much like the first two were . however , <POS> it's a very good film which never fails to entertain </POS> , and consists of yet another mutation in the style of the series . in short , <POS> i had a good time </POS> . " alien : resurrection " leaves off 200 years after the last one , where our heroine protagonist , ellen ripley ( sigourney weaver ) , the science fiction genre's answer to job , had killed herself after discovering that an alien was inside her body , waiting to pop out like it did to john hurt in the first one . of course , the last one wasn't very great or anything ( i liked it , though not as much as the first two ) , and more importantly , it wasn't financially successful ( a tawdry 55 million bucks ! ) . so back we are , with ripley back as a clone , which means we get another little satirical look at cloning ( not that that's a bad thing , but it's becoming a cliche ) . so she's cloned aboard an even more futuristic-looking ship called " the auriga " by some doctors ( including the necessary bad government guy , dr . wren , played by j . e . freeman , as well as the little-seen dr . gediman , played by none other than brad douriff ) , mainly because they have a version of her with the alien still inside her . once you get past the fact that you can't figure out where they got her blood ( although i think it might have been from the blood samples taken by charles dance in the third one ) , the film's okay . also on board are a band of mercenary pirates , including michael wincott , ron perlman , kim flowers , raymond cruz , dominique pinon ( a jeunet sytable ) and . . . winona ryder , who plays analee call , who turns out to have a bit of a secret ( i won't state it , but unless you've been shacking up with salinger for the past two years , you probably know all about it - although it's nicely covered up ) . there's a bit of a non-sexual-yet-slightly-homoerotic relationship between her and ripley , but it's never really deepened enough . oh well . well , as you might have guessed , the alien and its spawn escape and run around the ship . and it pretty much does away with most of the people on the ship ( including some shocks - dan hedaya , for instance , who's death is comical yet sad since , well , he's dan hedaya ) , and the remaining people ( about 7 or 8 ) are left to try and escape and stop the aliens from doing any major harm since the ship is heading quickly towards earth . of course , the plot is all balderdash , and just an excuse for some good old " alien " -brand fun . the real focus of the series seems to be on style , not really substance ( although there's always a bit of it , most notably in " aliens " with the relationship between ripley and the little girl ) . what's interesting about the series is that each film is stylistically different in its approach . " alien " is a claustrophobic exercise in quiet frights . " aliens " is a wild , tense thriller . " alien 3 " is a bleak , moody piece of semi-noir . " alien 4 " is kind of like an off-beat french film , filled with lots of humor , and cool scares . jean-pierre jeunet ( without his usual directing partner , marc caro ) creates a ship filled with the kind of scares films like " das boot " has , with echoes hinting at a possible threat . <POS> the chills in the film are really cool </POS> , especially with the music , which is sometimes turned down completely for certain scenes ( there's the most tense surgery scene since " face/off " towards the beginning ) . and not every chill turns into a bloody mess or anything like that . this all combined with <POS> some good old humor </POS> makes this <POS> as interesting visually and stylistically </POS> as the others . there are even a couple scenes which just stick out afterwards as being <POS> brilliantly executed </POS> . one is the aforementioned surgery scene . another one takes place between call and ripley , which is just awesome . the underwater chase scene and the ladder scene afterwards is <POS> one of the most tense , thrilling , and jaw-dropping scenes </POS> in the entire saga ( with a small allusion to jeunet's earlier film , " delicatessen " ) . and the way they do in the final alien is hysterically cool ( with a lovely allusion to " goldfinger " ) . but the best scene in the entire film ( i'm sure i'm not the first to mention it ) takes place when ripley sees all the variations on her as they cloned her ( she has a an " 8 " tatooed on her arm ) . it might be the most emotionally stimulating scene in the entire saga . the screenplay by joss whedon is not a great piece of work , as it never really deapens a lot of the characters . however , it does make us care about most of them , so that when there's very little of them , and it looks like one or more of them may become alien chow , we are pretty scared . and , yeah , there are some very funny lines ( ripley : " who do i have to fuck to get off this boat ? ! " johner : " well , i can get you off . but not this ship . " ) <POS> the acting is good all around </POS> , with <POS> stand-out performances </POS> from ron perlman as the male chauvenist pig johner , and leland orser ( the poor bastad in " se7en " who performed the " lust " sin ) as an anxiety-ridden wannabe woody allen who has an alien inside him . winona ryder is good , but not amazing like she usually is ( although she meshes well with the film ) . of course , and as usual , sigourney weaver <POS> steals the show </POS> . playing a variation on the ripley character ( less emotional , and more rude and bitter ) , she pulls it off while still being utterly lovable . she's not going to get an oscar nomination like she did for " aliens , " but <POS> she's just awesome </POS> . overall , it's <POS> a thrilling , entertaining film </POS> which doesn't really amaze like the first two , but is <POS> much more amazing </POS> than the third installment . the style is <POS> the best part of the film </POS> , which isn't really a bad thing , but it being the best part takes away from a lot of the depth the film occasionally tries to apply . but <POS> it's entertaining as hell </POS> , and it's definitely fit for the " alien " series .
