Alien: Resurrection (1997) or, Queen of the Goo Massacre!

7/26/2013

Alien: Resurrection (1997) or, Queen of the Goo Massacre!

♥♥

The unusual combination of two female stars in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien: Resurrection have gigantic faces that are suspended in icky green color in space on this poster for the film

Ripley (Sigourney Weaver (The Ice Storm (1997))) has slept for 200 years and now wakes up a half-alien.

The very idea to revive the Alien franchise once again with this (...) invention, - following Ridley Scott's watershed great space horror Alien (1979), James Cameron's explosive Aliens (1986) actioner and David Fincher's so-so prison-set Alien 3 (1992), - was a bad one.
The all-around overkill of Alien: Resurrection extends to its effects, which are competently done but so pervasive and disgusting (in an uncool way) that it feels like the original spirit of the Alien universe is by this chapter firmly buried somewhere in a mountain of snot, slime and blood.
The characters here, good and evil alike, are uninteresting, flat, and many of them sort of amateur-philosophers, (which doesn't make them more interesting), and the dialog is almost completely reduced to one-liners. Resurrection is directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie/Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001)) and written by Hollywood's later mega-mogul, Joss Whedon (The Avengers/Avengers Assemble (2012)), who has since denounced the final film, calling it "almost unwatchable."
He was right. But Ressurection's cool underwater scenes with aliens do, however, pull it up a bit. - If you do decide to give the film a chance, I say; do it strictly for the monsters!

Related posts:

The Alien franchise: Alien (1979) or, Space Eggs Are Bad News!
Aliens (1986) or, Alien War
Alien 3 (1992) or, The Monsters Go to Jail!
AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004) or, Everyone Loses
Prometheus (2012) or, Even Then, Space Eggs Were Bad News
Jean-Pierre Jeunet: Amélie/Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) - Pretentious French fluffy-puff poop
Delicatessen (1991) or, The Brown Quirk

Watching Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien: Resurrection feels a lot like what Sigourney Weaver appears to be doing in this photo: Immersing oneself in gooey crap

Here is a trailer for the film, captured off of a VHS tape

Cost: Estimated 75 mil. $

Box office: 161.3 mil. $

= Flop (returned likely 2.15 times its cost)
[Alien: Resurrection premiered 6 November (Paris, France) and runs 109 minutes. Whedon and Jeunet both took the job of making the film mostly as a career opportunity too great to turn down, it seems. Jeunet for a long time fought to have the aliens equipped with a mix of male and female genitals, which he did not succeed with in getting into the film. Weaver was reportedly paid 11 mil. $ for her performance, along with a co-producer credit on the film. Shooting took place from November 1996 - April 1997 in California and Manitoba and Ontario, Canada as the first Alien film shoot done entirely outside of England. The film opened #2, behind Flubber, to a 16.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another week at #2 before leaving the top 5, only running a total of 4 weeks domestically, grossing 47.7 mil. $ (29.6 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Jeunet's native France with 16.3 mil. $ (10.1 %) and Japan with 16.1 mil. $ (10%). Alien: Resurrection was only the 47th highest-grossing film in North America of 1997, quite bad for an Alien movie. It is the first and only film in the franchise so far to be highly financially unsuccessful. Roger Ebert gave the film a 1½/4 star review, translating to a notch under its rating here, and called it one of the worst film of the year. An extended version of the film was released on DVD in 2003, but Jeunet says that the theatrical edition is his favorite. The franchise has since gotten two poor, unrelated sequels (AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)), a prequel by Ridley Scott (Prometheus (2012)), and is getting another Scott entry in 2017 in Alien: Covenant. Jeunet returned with Amélie (2001). Weaver returned in A Map of the World (1999), Winona Ryder (Mr. Deeds (2002)) in The Larry Sanders Show (1998, TV-series) and theatrically in Celebrity (1998). Alien: Resurrection is rotten at 54 % with a 5.8/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Alien: Resurrection?

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William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

William Hurt has passed away

Born in Washington D.C., Hurt's first film role was the lead in Altered States (1980). Later credits include Body Heat (1981), The Big Chill (1983), Gorky Park (1983), Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), for which he earned his only Oscar as Best Actor; Chilrdren of a Lesser God (1986), for which he was also Oscar-nominated; Broadcast News (1987), for which he was again Oscar-nominated; Smoke (1995), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), A History of Violence (2005), for which he was again Oscar-nominated; The Good Shepherd (2006), Into the Wild (2007), Robin Hood (2010) and many more. Hurt passed away at age 71. R.I.P.

Ivan Reitman has passed away

Born in Chechoslovakia, now Slovakia, Reitman's family fled the Soviet regime to Austria, then Toronto, when he was 4 years old. Reitman broke into movies as a director with Foxy Lady (1971). Later credits include Cannibal Girls (1973), Meatballs (1979), Stripes (1981), Ghostbusters (1984), Twins (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Kindergarten Cop (1990), Junior (1994), Father's Day (1997), Evolution (1998), No Strings Attached (2011), Draft Day (2014) and more. Reitman's son Jason Reitman is also a great filmmaker. Reitman passed away at age 75. R.I.P.

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7/26/2013

Alien: Resurrection (1997) or, Queen of the Goo Massacre!

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