5. Alien: Resurrection (1997)
The fourth main entry in the series, Alien: Resurrection could have played it safe and hoped that it could bring in the money and fans via the iconic name, some xenomorphs, and Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. Instead, Resurrection is very weird and at times uncomfortable, but it’s never a bland sci-fi romp, and it has some genuinely clever moments and ideas.
If you ask me to mention anything from Alien 3 it’s just that meme everyone knows and the terrible decision to kill Newt from Aliens. But Alien: Resurrection, on the other hand, is a movie that burned many scenes and images into my head. Stand-out moments include the bit where the Xenos attack one of their own to use its acid blood to escape containment, the creepy and sad moment when Ripley (a clone in this movie) has to kill a barely living and different Ripley clone, and when someone kills another person using the chest-burster exploding from their own body like an organic alien spear. Good stuff! And let’s also not forget one of the coolest moments ever captured on film: That time Weaver nailed a behind-the-back basketball shot and made Ron Perlman break character.
Sure, yeah, the ending is wild and depressing. And yeah, at this point the film is arguably not a part of the current Alien canon—though what is and isn’t canon in this franchise is a wild mess that’s not worth thinking about. But whatever, I really dig Resurrection for taking some risks, doing some weird shit, and trying to create something new and not just rehashing the past few films but with some new actors. And while I’m excited to see Romulus, the latest film in the series, I’ll admit that I’m a bit sad to see that the film is so dedicated to perfectly recapturing the look of the old movies while treating the franchise like it’s a precious artifact that can never be broken.
Resurrection shows that it’s often more memorable and interesting to do something weird and take a big swing than just do Alien again and again until the heat death of the universe. — Zack Zwiezen
