Alien: Resurrection
Metascore
63 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 21 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 21
  3. Negative: 1 out of 21
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  1. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    67
    Weaver essays the new hotmama Ripley with wry, good humor -- you can tell she's having a ball playing this unstoppable die-cast she-wolf.
  2. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Lisa Alspector
    40
    Whedon and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Delicatessen") bend over so far backward to make Weaver's and Ryder's roles beefy that they end up mocking the characters' bravura.
  3. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    38
    It's a nine days' wonder, a geek show designed to win a weekend or two at the box office and then fade from memory.
  4. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    50
    Heavy on violence and special effects, light on everything else.
  5. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    70
    Weaver is able to take a schlock conception and turn it into a tour de force. Sky-high and straight-backed, she's imperiously graceful in this film; at times she resembles Martha Graham in the swooping, lyrical severity of her movements.
  6. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    83
    By rocketing ahead 200 years from the previous film and jiggering the story cleverly (with a script by Toy Story coscreenwriter Joss Whedon as late-'90s wiseacreish as Alien3 was early-'90s portentous) to create a Ripley reconstructed through a mix of human and alien DNA, Alien Resurrection power-kicks the whole definition of the Horrifying Other into a fresh, deep, exhilaratingly thoughtful, millennium-sensitive direction. [5 Dec 1997, p. 47]
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  7. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Tom Meek
    50
    Sigourney gets some good "Rambo" lines, but about halfway through the film her alien super powers go dormant.
  8. Film.com
    Reviewed by: John Hartl
    70
    So campy that it almost plays like a sendup of the series. It is to Alien what "The Bride of Frankenstein" was to other 1930s Frankenstein movies, and it even shares some of the same themes.
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  9. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    70
    Under the reins of Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Delicatessen"), the Alien franchise has lost none of its taste for acid-spewing, flesh-impaling, entrail-dripping gore.
  10. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    63
    Has a bold, inventive style that occasionally compensates for story weaknesses. And, admittedly, there's a certain visceral appeal to the action sequences.
  11. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Laura Miller
    80
    Weaver obviously relishes playing this feral, sarcastic new Ripley, and her pleasure is infectious.
  12. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Peter Stack
    50
    The cluttered, surreal, claustrophobic sets and gooey alien creatures look intriguing, sometimes shocking. But the story tries so hard to be imaginative that it congeals and sinks like lead.
  13. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    60
    Even with her stinko lines, Weaver has never been as flabbergastingly gorgeous and charismatic. She's tall and lean and meteor-hard, and you can almost believe there's really acid in her blood, and that no alien in its right mind would mess with her.
  14. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    70
    Perfectly in keeping with a series that began by simply putting a monster on a spaceship, then gave itself the creative freedom to explore what that monster and that spaceship really meant. [Quadrilogy]
  15. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    75
    Jeunet manages a terrific pass in an extended underwater sequence, but, beyond that, he runs out of ideas as we run out of patience.
  16. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Elvis Mitchell
    70
    Tauntingly flirtatious scenes between Ms. Ryder and Ms. Weaver give this film a sexual boldness that the others' action-adventure spirit lacked.
  17. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    70
    On the whole, the eek-for-yuks trade-off is more than fair--hip without being campy or condescending to one of the better movie franchises. [1 Dec 1997, p. 84]
    All this critic's reviews
  18. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    50
    The plot is more of the same old running and screaming, but Weaver is worth the price of admission all by herself, which is just as well in light of the less-than-fleshed out characters by whom she's surrounded.
  19. Variety
    Reviewed by: Derek Elley
    60
    As a series of action set pieces, the movie is frequently gripping and always highly watchable. However, when the movie strays into weirder territory --- where, one feels, Jeunet's heart really lies --- there's a growing feeling of inadequacy.
  20. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    80
    Recycles the great surprises that made the first movie so powerful. And most significantly, it makes a big hoot of the whole business.
  21. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephen Hunter
    80
    So drippy and slippery you'll feel that you're hiding in Kevin Costner's nasal passages during the filming of "Waterworld."

User Reviews

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User Score
6.0 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 105 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 27
  3. Negative: 11 out of 27
  1. grandpajoe6191
    4
    "Aliens: Resurrection" is a terrible movie filled with nothing but pessimism. Its a film that will make you grim and moody in a happy sunny day.
  2. Harry210
    7
    After seeing Alien 3, I thought that the Alien franchise was running out of new ideas and Alien Resurrection seems to recycle the same plotline from previous Alien movies but I still enjoyed watching it. The Aliens are back in this movie (don't know why this movie is called Alien Resurrection since there's more than one Alien again. Should be called Aliens Resurrection) and they seem to have the same motive as before: breed, prey on humans and make everyone's lives a little bit more uncomfortable. Having Aliens in the movie rather than one Alien does make the movie a little bit more exciting but doesn't really produce any scares, due to the fact I've seen these monsters in 3 movies although they still look gruesome. The movie takes place straight after Alien 3 where scientists attempt to clone Ripley and extract the Alien Queen inside her. This movie has got to be the most disturbing in the series and seeing the sleeping naked Ripley clone inside a glass tube was creepy if a little bit sexy. Just looking at the scene where Ripley and the mercenaries discover the failed attempts to clone Ripley in glass chambers and one clone lying on the table, with a deformed body saying "kill me" in a desperate voice. I cringed a little bit but thank god the other not so grotesque main Ripley clone torches the room with a flamethrower. The Alien queen makes a return and just serves the same purpose as in Aliens: She produces eggs which then spit out facehuggers and, you know the story. This movie's plot is a bit predictable: the human gets hugged by a facehugger and then an Alien hatches and kills everyone in sight thing, has been done 3 times. I thought the story was fine and it was enjoyable to see the Aliens again attacking in large numbers and the mercenaries fighting them off rather than another plot like the 1st and the 3rd Alien movies. The movie really gets going straight away, as soon as the Alien queen was extracted from Ripley; you don't really have to wait long until the whole terror of the Alien swarm start to engulf the screen and start attacking our heroes. The effects in the underwater scene where the Alien swims underwater and tries to catch up with his prey were quite good. Where Alien Resurrection is set is natural for an Alien film but it's a bit repetitive. It even recycles a bit of the plotline from the first movie where Call (another android like Bishop from Aliens and Alien 3) sets the spaceship on a collision course to Earth, much like the spaceship in Alien that was set to blow up to stop the Alien from escaping. I thought the acting was good - I enjoyed seeing Ron Perlman playing a bad tempered mercenary, having seen him first in Hellboy. Ripley played once again by Sigourney Weaver was a little bit less of a heroine in this one than in Aliens since she has a link with the Aliens. She now has enhanced strength, acidic blood and can smell an Alien from a mile away and can even tell if a human has an Alien inside him or her. She seems to accept that she now has a link with the Aliens produced and theoretically, she is their mother because she gave birth to their queen: She even says to an Alien host, Pervis, "I'm the monsters mother" while slightly grinning. This movie does inject some originality into its Alien character design with the introduction of the Alien/Human hybrid which is what you get if you give an Alien queen a female humans womb, then let it give birth. This Alien/Human hybrid looks like a white ape and doesn't kill anyone except for its mother, due to the fact that Ripley is the "proper" mother of the Aliens. This movie just like the previous movies is gory; the scene where the Alien/Hybrid gets sucked out of the ship through a tiny hole in the ship is especially gory. He has very little screen time so I didn't really see why they put him in it. This is not a suspenseful, horror movie like Alien and Alien 3. I have to compare this movie to Aliens due to the fact that there is more than one Alien again unlike Alien and Alien 3 but there is nowhere near as much action in this movie than there was in Aliens but at least there is some action with the mercenaries and the Aliens. I still prefer Aliens because it had a better plot but I really have to confess this: I think this is the 2nd best movie in the franchise, beating Alien by a fraction. I just thought it was a little bit more exciting and a lot more was happening to keep me entertained rather than just waiting for something to happen in Alien but do not think for one second that I don't like Alien because I do. Alien Resurrection's ending wasn't that good: Ripley has a standoff with the Alien/Human hybrid and then the Alien/Human hybrid gets sucked out of the spaceship through a tiny hole and then Ripley and Call land on Earth. The ending isn't as good as the previous Alien movies. Alien Resurrection was a satisfying movie to watch and tied up the Alien storyline nicely.… Full Review »
  3. ERG1008
    3
    Ripley cloned, Aliens being bred, hired mercenaries get involved, Aliens break loose, you know the rest....
    The final part of the Alien Quadri    logy & it is a bit of a damp squib. Appalling dialogue, especially from Ripley with some truly dreadful acting by Sigourney Weaver to match.
    The Aliens have evolved into a cross breed of a bull and a Velociraptor but, as in the 3rd film, just don't seem as scary. Much more graphic than the other films too but less on the suspense.
    It's a shame they ended the franchise (although a prequel to Alien is being discussed) with this awful film after all the good work from the other three.    … Full Review »
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