Plot
200 years after her death on Fury 161, Ellen Ripley “awakens” on a military space vessel called Auriga, run by the no nonsense General Perez.
She discovers that she has been cloned by scientists, and she is dubbed ‘Ripley 8’ by them, and they have already cloned the Xenomorph having removed it from her while ‘growing her’.
A group of mercenaries, led by Elgyn arrive on Auriga with human cargo, for the scientists to study the Xenomoprh’s as hosts.
Now, the aliens are once again loose on the ship – but Ellen – no longer human – is connected to the aliens, both physically and psychically.
Direction
In the fourth installment, we have our fourth director to take the helm in French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
I haven’t come across him before, but he has only made nine films in his almost 40 year career.
I quite liked his chaotic camera movement as it paired with with the chaos happening around Ripley.
Cast/Characters
Sigourney Weaver of course returns as Ripley, slightly changed due to her characters… ‘return’. She does a great job as always.
The ‘crew’ she works alongside are some great names in the industry, such as Michael Wincott (as the team leader Elgyn), Winona Ryder (as Call, who has her own secrets she keeps from her team), Ron Perlman as Johner the testosterone fueled cliche.
Other cast who are Dan Hedaya (as the General who runs the military ship), Raymond Cruz (as one of the soldiers aboard), Brad Dourif as one of the scientists, JE Freeman as another scientist, and Leland Orser as a kidnapped human used for “studying the xenomorph).
Breakdown
Made nearly five years after what seemingly was the end of Ripley, brings her back quite ingeniously, and creatively (and in a world of chest bursting aliens, this was also quite logical too).
How she came to be back is answered fairly early in the script (written by Joss Whedon before his Buffy and Justice League fame).
It seemed fitting that Ripley would now be ‘connected’ to the Aliens – but at times it felt clumsily written as she was almost seemingly their “mother” at one stage – but then her humanity took over and she was all about killing them once again.
I enjoyed the ‘throwback’ to who wanted the Xenomorph, as throughout the franchise the company of Weyland Yutani had been desperate to get their hands on it, however in this film it is a military operation run by a no nonsense (and unwilling to listen cliche) General (played by the always delivering Dan Hedaya).
The crew that gets caught in the middle of all the carnage are fine, but at no time do you really ‘root’ for many of them – and as they get picked off one by one – you don’t really mourn them as you have characters in previous installments (the list is countless). It also feels repetitive again, but in a movie about a monster, you can’t really make all these deaths too original. I just wish they wrote some of them to be more likable.
There are some genuinely graphic moments of violence, (such as one poor sole being froze to death with liquid nitrogen, and the alien being sucked out into space through a coin sized hole). There is also some great tense moments, such as the swimming underwater with the Xenomorph on the likable characters tail.
Overall
Solid enough sequel, but it felt both unnecessary and unnecessarily cruel to Ripley (at least this time she gets a happy ending?)
Like the previous film, it is repetitive with a new band of crew of ‘expendables’ who the xenomorph can just plow through, which you don’t mind too much as they are written semi antagonistically.
I enjoyed the directing at times, and it amps up the violence which is necessary for a horror film like this.
3.5/5
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