Last time, Ripley had fallen into a nest of aliens and was presumed dead. The crew made it to their resupply ship, the Betty, hoping to escape the larger military ship, the USM Auriga before it crashes to Earth.

But of course, Ripley is not dead. She’s taken to the Queen, which would normally make sense. In the second film, the aliens took their victims to a nest and wrapped them in cocoons to serve as hosts for the spider-like variants’ embryos. However, Ripley isn’t wrapped in a cocoon. She’s left on the ground in front of the Queen.

Now, one of the doctors, the man who’d developed an attachment to Ripley, is inside the nest, and he’s been wrapped in a cocoon, as have several other people. Therefore, the aliens are indeed capturing victims, meaning Christie and Hillard, might’ve survived! But the writers are ignoring that detail with everything they have.

The doctor explains that the Queen has taken on a second birthing cycle, one which doesn’t require an egg. So, in the same way that Ripley has inherited the acidic blood of the alien through the cloning process, the Queen has inherited the ability to give birth like a mammal. Uh?

Okay? I mean, it makes sense, I guess, but it’s bizarre. However, it’s not as bizarre the thing that comes out of the Queen. She gives birth to what can only be described as an alien-human hybrid. It’s not pretty. But it kills the Queen, which means it’s a good guy?

But then it eats the doctor… so, it’s a bad guy? But it also thinks Ripley is its mother, and I have no idea what to make of that. Ripley, apparently, has no idea what to make of it either, so she crawls out of the nest and runs for the Betty. Th hybrid chases her, probably because it can’t understand why its momma is fleeing for her life.

Why introduce the hybrid just now?

I’m not going to say the introduction of the hybrid was a bad choice on the part of the writers, but like so many things in this movie, the idea isn’t explored in any detail. If the hybrid rejects the Queen and accepts Ripley, then some part of it recognizes itself as human. If it thinks of itself as human, it might be hesitant to kill other humans. How interesting it would have been if Ripley had told the hybrid what to do because it thought she was its mother? What if this new creature was a gentle giant? That wouldn’t make for a very climatic ending, but it would open the door to more sequels.

I’m not really suggesting this. My point is that the writers wanted to chase a bizarre idea but still chose to treat this new hybrid like a standard B-movie monster. In theory, a writer could make a concept like this believable, but it would need to be explored further. Its introduction creates numerous questions. How evil is the hybrid? Can Ripley tame it? Should it be tamed even though it killed the doctor? I was so distracted by these questions I that could barely pay attention to the climax of the film.

Anyway, Ripley makes it to the Betty, but before she shows up, the crew has to deal with Wren. He surprises the group, shoots Purvis, then holds Call at gunpoint.

Here, something interesting happens. Purvis has done very good job keeping the embryo inside his chest from coming out of him, but when he’s shot, the embryo tries to escape. In a moment of astonishing bravery — very uncharacteristic for this series — Purvis runs up to Wren, grabs hold of him, and forces the newborn alien to kill them both. Then the crew shoots the embryo and starts the ship.

Purvis’ end is gruesome. But I’ve got to say that in this single moment, he becomes one of the most heroic characters in the entire franchise. It’s a shame he has very little screen time.

Ripley jumps onto the Betty right as it’s about to take off. Of course, as they’re trying to leave the USM Auriga, one of the Betty ’s doors refuses to close. I’ll give you one guess why.

Call tries to shut the door, but surprise! The baby’s on board! It closes the door for no apparent reason, and then randomly tries to kill Call, but one of the last survivors shows up and is murdered instead. Then Ripley arrives. She starts soothing the baby—this is yet another scene that can only be described as bizarre—and as she’s pawing at the thing, she cuts her hand on its mouth. She uses her acidic blood to burn a hole through a window. The hole creates a suction, and the hybrid is pulled into space while Ripley and Call hang onto some straps to keep from being sucked out of the ship as well. Then the Betty reaches Earth’s atmosphere, and Ripley, Call, Johner, and Vriess are safe.

And the ending …

As for the USM Auriga, which is holding the rest of the aliens, it crashes, taking out the remaining monsters . . . as well as a quarter of an entire continent. Why did the graphics people decide to make the explosion that big? It raises way too many questions! Specifically, why didn’t Call crash the ship in the ocean or Antarctica? The robot probably killed more people than the aliens ever could have! Ripley and Call talk about how pretty Earth is, and the story ends.

What a bizarre movie! It’s good only insofar as the bar has been set incredibly low. In comparison to Alien 3, it’s a Picasso. In comparison to most other tales in the sci-fi genre, it’s trash.

But I will say this for it. After a certain point, the movie becomes enjoyable in the same way any lame slasher film is enjoyable. The problem with Alien 3 is that it’s not just dark because you’re watching people die. The movie outright rejects anything noble. It rejects family. It rejects heroes. It rejects the idea that anything the viewer is watching matters in anyway. That is strange because then why should the viewer care about what’s happening?

As a series, Alien Resurrection didn’t go quite that far, but it still kept too many aspects of Alien 3. The characters are cartoonish. The aliens explode for no apparent reason. Most of the cast is selfish, and the few noble characters in the film either die without much screentime or aren’t even human. And this affects the likability of the protagonist.
For example, as far as the viewer knows, some of the characters wrapped in cocoons were alive. They weren’t placed near any eggs, so presumably, they were there for the hybrid, but the alien hybrid ate only the doctor. So shouldn’t there be a discussion about saving the survivors?

No such conversation is had because most of the characters are too selfish, but shouldn’t Ripley, at least, raise the question? The old one would. She went after Newt. She even saved a goofy cat in the first film. The fact that she doesn’t even say anything shows the shallow nature of the movie. Those men are there to serve as carnage, so who cares if they live or die?
The same thing can be said about Christie and Hillard. They were just meat for the monsters. Ripley would’ve known that the aliens captured some of their prey. Therefore, she would’ve debated about saving them. This kind of callousness weakens the hero and affects the stakes of the film. If human life doesn’t matter, then why should the viewer care about the protagonist?

I have a number of complaints about this movie, but it did end on a somewhat hopeful note. Ripley is back. Yes. She’s a clone. Yes. A clone is not a replacement for the original. But Ripley’s return is the writers’ tacit rejection of the third movie. So, Alien Resurrection may be bad, but it isn’t forgettable. In fact, it might help you forget Alien 3, and that alone makes it worth watching.

Here are Parts 1 through 3 of my extended review of Alien Resurrection (1997):

Alien Resurrection, Part 1: This movie pays for the sins of the last one. It’s better than Aliens 3, but has a host of problems nonetheless. Ripley remembers enough about her old life to have misgivings about the military raising the Alien Queen, but of course, she’s ignored, and the army moves on to the second phase of their plan.

Alien Resurrection, Part 2: Trying to recover after a retcon The writers of the show never seemed to agree on how smart these aliens really are. A problem for the franchise as a whole is that there’s been no consistent measurement for these creatures’ intelligence.

Alien Resurrection, Part 3: Call up the reluctant robot Amid the harrowing crew escapes, Call survives being shot because she’s a robot. She somehow has sentience and hates being a robot. No one can pull ideals from a system of numbers. How could a robot decide what is objectively moral when all its decisions are based on a set of probabilities?