Alien: Resurrection

Ripley babysits her abomination and inhumanely kills it

Alien Resurrection is a sequel that doesn't seem necessary, set around the year 2379. It opens with a scene of a bug carrying the Xenomorph gene, an odd and unprecedented mutation. This is the first non-chronological instance of the gene adapting to an insect, which immediately feels inconsistent. The story takes place on Auriga, a medical-military vessel, where we witness a cloning procedure that sets the tone for the entire movie. Right from the start, it's nonsensical. The idea that Ripley was cloned with the Xenomorph embryo inside her is one of the worst kinds of deus ex machina storytelling. It exists purely as an excuse to continue the franchise.

Still, there are hints that Ripley isn't the first attempt, as she's marked with a number, suggesting multiple failed clones before her. Set roughly 200 years after Alien 3, the film shows Ripley regaining fragments of her past, but she seems to recall details about the Xenomorphs far too quickly, making her recovery feel unnaturally rushed. Meanwhile, Weyland-Yutani is no longer relevant, replaced by a new corporation that has successfully cloned a Queen Xenomorph. As with previous entries, the extended cut proves necessary to fully grasp the story and character development.

While the visuals aren't as striking as previous entries, they're still solid for the time. The atmosphere is stronger than in Alien 3, though the film's excessive darkness isn't the best artistic choice. It works well enough but doesn't necessarily enhance the experience. The story kicks off when Auriga invites a rogue crew aboard to "shop" for supplies, leading straight into their unethical experiments. The introduction of Ripley's enhanced physical abilities, including acidic blood, is an interesting twist, not necessarily logical, when a surgical procedure was previously done on her body without any toxins or destroyed equipment. The attempt to "tame" the Xenomorphs with violence is also an intriguing, albeit questionable, plot point.

Unfortunately, the writing is lazy at times, and the characters are forgettable at best. Some of the early action scenes feel downright cheesy. The Xenomorphs' intelligence is expanded further, showing them sacrificing one of their own to escape captivity. They demonstrate an understanding of basic logic, machinery, buttons, and locks. While this progression could make sense, it feels like an abrupt jump in their capabilities. The movie suffers from inconsistent pacing, sometimes dragging unnecessarily, other times rushing through critical moments. This uneven flow makes certain sections dull and hard to stay engaged with.

Ripley's characterization is another issue. She's no longer the Ripley we knew, she's been rewritten as an unstoppable superhuman badass. While this could have been an interesting evolution, it feels forced and hollow. The ship's AI being called Father instead of Mother is an oddly unnecessary change. Small continuity errors pop up as well. Ripley's scar inconsistently appears at start, but then disappears throughout the film.

One of the film's few truly powerful scenes is Ripley discovering the failed cloning experiments, grotesque abominations of herself. Her decision to burn them is a heartbreaking moment, filled with pain and suffering. It's the best sequence in the movie, but ultimately feels like an isolated emotional beat rather than an integral part of the plot.

Of course, Alien Resurrection follows the early 2000s trend of including an obligatory underwater action scene for tension.

And another ridiculous moment is when Ripley simply rips off a facehugger. By this logic, why didn't anyone else ever do that before? And now, suddenly, Xenomorphs can spit acid? Where was this ability in every previous movie, or why did they kill their friend in the beginning when they could just spit?

The final act introduces a major plot twist. The Queen Xenomorph, altered by Ripley's DNA, now gives birth like a human, bypassing the need for hosts. This results in a grotesque human-Xenomorph hybrid that fails to recognize its own kind. In an absurd turn, it kills the Queen and instead bonds with Ripley, treating her as its mother. The emotional weight of this moment is clearly intended, but it doesn't land as well as the filmmakers hoped. The hybrid's death, being sucked out of a tiny hole in the ship, feels unnecessarily cruel, inhumane, and comically anticlimactic. It goes against the moral framework of previous films, where even Xenomorphs were given a kind of respect as creatures simply trying to survive.

Ripley is presented as a superhuman badass, yet she contributes little throughout the film. Aside from killing a single Xenomorph, she mostly acts as dead weight, merely existing within the story without any real impact.

Despite all its flaws, Alien Resurrection does one thing well, it expands on the biology and anatomy of the Xenomorphs, particularly their adaptability through different hosts. However, this conflicts with the earlier bug mutation in the intro, as well as with later prequels like Prometheus and Covenant. Ultimately, the movie feels like a forced addition to the series. It doesn't enrich the lore in a meaningful way, it just exists to show us a human-xenomorph abomination and that is all there is to it.