The final and most bizarre film of the Alien series, Alien: Resurrection is an exotic take on a familiar item. We've had it raw, fried, and grilled. Now it's served in its own slime and a spicy curry that your body just can't handle the first time around. I mentioned in my review of the first Alien film that the movie truly was alien to its original audiences. Well, the fourth installment was just as alien to its contemporary lovers of the Alien series. However, this one was not well received. There are always a few inedible parts in Alien: Resurrection, but with familiarity it becomes a pretty enjoyable dish.

(WARNING: By necessity, this review contains huge Alien³ and moderate Aliens spoilers throughout.)

The military is desperate to get their hands on everyone's favorite xenomorph, so in an effort to do so, the scientists aboard a hush-hush military spacecraft have cloned the Ripley who died two hundred years ago on Fiorina 161. How does this provide them with an alien, you ask? When a facehugger plants a baby alien in a host, the two begin to swap DNA. That is where each alien gets its general form and skeletal structure. But it is a two-way process. Ripley previously absorbed the (queen) alien's DNA, too, so by cloning her, we also clone her little pea-in-the-pod. Also, the alien's DNA contains genetic memory, so Ripley #8, referred to as such because she has an at-first curious "8" tattooed on her arm, quickly regains awareness of what things are, how things work, and what all has happened to her in her eventful past. She did not acquire only memory, though; she also absorbed many of the alien's features, namely incredible strength, acidic blood, and alien-esque mannerisms. After the scientists extract the alien from the Ripley #8, study it, and produce a number of the basic warrior aliens to study further, the inevitable happens. They get loose.

Ripley #8 is the only character worth paying much attention to in Alien: Resurrection. Due to the DNA mingling, she is now a creature of survival, efficiently breaking anything that she perceives as a threat. That's bad news for both the aliens and the equally self-concerned humans that make up her surroundings. She is unable to relate to any of the life forms, not because she isn't fully either but because none of them care about anything but themselves. Other people, and even other aliens, are there to be taken advantage of for one's own self-interest. In about the final thirty minutes of the film, we see that this Ripley does have the capacity to care for others, even if they care only for themselves.

I am always surprised at the lack of recognition Sigourney Weaver gets for her acting as Ripley #8. She has to act differently than she has in the previous installments because she is no longer only human, and man does she nail it. Ripley has always been a tough character, but Ripley #8 is an animal, always cocking her head as if sizing others up and frequently moving with the same dexterity and strength as the alien whose DNA she now shares. She is still a "good guy," but there is now a definite streak of predatory instinct in her body language. This is gutsy acting at its best.

Weaver also demonstrates how perfect of a casting decision she was in the first place. With a strong jaw and effortless grimace, she seems to physically exhibit traces of the alien species, and the best part about this is that despite these powerful features, she also retains her beauty, just as the alien is, in its own way, beautiful. I cannot think of anyone else with the looks to pull this off with no makeup effects whatsoever. It almost seems like it was meant to be.

In the final act, which piles on the grotesque, the weird, and the disgusting with grandeur, the xeno-Ripley is embraced by the queen while the latter gives birth, in a human way this time (remember how I said the DNA swapping goes both ways?). Ripley #8 exhibits no fear and in fact remains passive and intimate throughout the scene. Then it goes even further -- the queen births an alien-human that is, because of its ancestry, much more human than any of its predecessors. It sees our Ripley as its mother and, in a scene that is actually touching if you can get past the shock of it, lovingly licks her face before going off to eat some prey captured by the queen. Finally, we come to see how this show of love affected Ripley #8 in an ending that is bizarre, nauseating, disturbing, and surprisingly sad. Of course, if you don't dare to follow director Jean-Pierre Jeunet to the places he asks us to go, you will find all of this merely ridiculous and gross.

For those who appreciate Juenet's audacity to create these images and situations, there is some disappointment that, before this grand finale, the movie occasionally wanders into the mundane. I'm not referring to the moments when the spectacles stop so that the story can be told; the story itself is indeed interesting. What I'm referring to are the little action sequences that are drawn out for too long and the scenes that give undeveloped characters too much attention for the sake of exposition. The good news is that the rest of the film more than makes up for its faults.

Even before the aforementioned final sequences, there are plenty of scenes that will have you cringing. When we are shown how the scientists breed their alien test-subjects, for instance, fears resurface that we haven't felt since the second film of the series. We are also offered a little half-reference to Aliens. Let me just say that I thought that movie offered the most disturbing pleading of "Kill me" that could possibly be imagined. Then I saw Alien: Resurrection. When Jeunet goes to these places, the movie offers imagery so disturbing that we are no longer only watching a film. We are being affected by it.

I saw this movie in the theater with my dad and a very close friend when I was about 13. A small part of me liked it right away, but with the superego immediately at hand, that enjoyment was something I could not admit. It is too strange, even as far as Alien films go, to safely approve of. For the part of me that immediately liked it, there were still other parts for which it was a bit too much indeed. Upon a second or third viewing, though, it becomes clear that director Jeunet may be French, but he isn't just trying to weird us out; he's venturing into territory that we would never have approached ourselves. This surely accounts for the film's missteps. When you're blindly feeling out new territory, you cannot avoid tripping over some obstacles. When the first attempt to close the series was made with Alien³, the ending was symbolic and saddening. When Alien: Resurrection reopened the series to take one last look, the ending left viewers in a bewilderment that was, it seems, often overshadowed by the urge to vomit. This one takes some getting used to.