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Alien Resurrection
Reviewed by Geoffrey Elliott

To sum up the feel of this latest installment in the Alien series, I can use one word: disappointment. I was hoping to see a rebirth of quality in these films, and while it goes well beyond Alien 3 I found it substantially lacking.

To begin, the character of Ripley has been mangled, in my opinion. What was formerly a model of inner resolve and determination is now nothing more than a stereotypical macho female character. The basketball scene, played by many of my peers as one of the best scenes of the film, seemed to me to be exactly the type of gross indulgence that filmmakers use to often. A series of events designed, I am sure, to portray Ripley as 'tough' serve only as a distraction in the film. The added ability to communicate with her new offspring only make Ripley come off as odd, rather than intriguing. Your mind is screaming "get to the aliens!" while the film is trying to add some depth to it's rather weak characters.

Which they are. The crew of the Betty, with the exception of Winona who has cause for her stony depiction, are all cardboard cutouts of standard action sci-fi type. Short clips that are supposed to give us 'insight' come off as fake. In short, we don't care if the characters make it to their ship and survive, we only want to experience the thrill of the chase.

Alien ImageUnfortunately the film comes short in the thrill/scare department as well. The aliens are just as ferocious as you'd expect, and even a bit more cunning this time. When one of them gets a real good closeup, with ooze dripping off that hideous face, you can't help but feel a shiver run up your spine. But when the aliens are supposed to do their worst, when the heroes are in danger, the special effects here are jerky, ill-composited and come off looky cheesy. A scene of aliens swimming through a flooded chamber like futuristic sharks could have been the best since Jaws, but instead your mind is screaming "Fake!" as the creatures rush forward to snare their prey; such a snap away from the reality the film should be creating is a major no-no. The filmmakers should have stuck more to the on-the-set work, since it's much more realistic looking, and much more fearsome.

The worst part of the film is quite easily the last 20 minutes or so. A new breed of alien is introduced, as I'm sure you know by now, and there is one major flaw: it isn't scary! This alien doesn't strike fear into your heart; and the only time you cringe is when hearing the croons coming from it, or the repulsive dialogue used to describe the situation. This outcome of Alien/Human breeding is some type of horrendous looking miscreant that apparently we're supposed to identify with even as it's devouring the others around it. A big mistake to even attempt this type of setup.

And my my own personal rant. As some of you may or may not know, Giger, the man responsible for the original Alien design, was not credited in this film. He was the creator for a creature that sends shivers down your spine just looking at it. And there wasn't even a nod of the head in his direction. Perhaps that's because the production designers decided to drop his novel ideas in favor of more conventional approaches. Which was another blunder. In any case, Giger was wrongfully stiffed in my opinion. There's my rant.

The Betty: A cool little ship.Some positive stuff: lots of the production design for this film is very cool. The Betty is a very cool little ship in my opinion. There are also some very nice scenes at the beginning. A scientist communicating with an alien is very humorous and the grenade shot is wonderful. You'll recognize the scenes if you see the flick. Unfortunately, those scenes do take place at the beginning; very quickly the movie starts to slouch, and finishes hunched over.

Overall this film is pretty boring, which is just what you don't want in sci-fi action. You don't get anything really exceptional, certainly nothing that you haven't seen before. Mild humor, some gore here and there, and a big series to build on don't automatically make a movie. With some more work, perhaps a more talented writer and director, this could have gone somewhere. As it is I was left feeling I'd wasted some money just to write this article.


Alien Resurrection
Reviewed by Clayton Cameron

"Ellen Ripley died trying to wipe this species out. I'm not anxious to see her taking up her old hobbies!" -General Perez

I'm not going to go back and describe each and every one of the Alien movies to you; watch them if you wish (and I suggest you do!). I'll just fill you in on what you need to know to understand where Alien Resurrection starts off. Ellen Ripley, Sigourney Weaver's intrepid killer of all things bug, was last seen jumping into a vat of molten lead with a baby queen alien tearing it's way out of her chest. She was not doing this in vain, however, for the evil Company was about to capture her and the queen alien, thus dooming humanity.

200 years have passed, but the desire to capture the alien (and doom humanity) is still strong. This time, it is not the Company, but a team of military men who want the creature. So they clone Ripley, and with her the queen alien. Removing it, they let the queen grow and lay eggs. The resulting aliens grow in hosts provided by a team of pirates, who go around stealing cyrotubes (and the people in them) and delivering them to the scientists. When the aliens escape, it's up to Ripley and these mercenaries to stop the ship, which is now on a doomsday course to Earth, and save themselves in the process.

I loved Alien Resurrection. Plain and simple. It's the best of the four Alien movies, for many reasons. It's also very different than any we've seen before. There is a distinct sensuality in this movie; in Ripley; in the aliens even. For instance, the queen alien now has a more human reproductive system(live birth), and one scientist seems attracted to the creatures. Even in the way some of the scenes are shot is there an almost erotic undertone.

The acting is perfect for the type of film it is. But this is not a bad thing. While some of the characters are no more than filler, they're pretty convincing filler. Sigourney Weaver gives an exceptional performance as Ripley, revealing a side we've never seen before and are not sure we want to see again. For this is alien-ized Ripley, and we're never really sure what side she's on. Winona Ryder plays her role well, though it could have been any actress.

The action in Alien Resurrection is very well done, with just enough gore. It is often shot in close-ups, which actually turns out to be a good thing, showing us a lot less than could have been done. This held true up until the ending, in which we see every last bit of an alien get sucked into space via a hole 1/100th of it's size. Very messy.

On a quirky note, I also liked how it was shot. Because I think in visual terms a lot, this is just something I notice. The scenes were very nicely done, with a lot of close-ups on faces, particularly in moments of tension. This turned out to be very suspensful. Also, in a lot of the alien attack scenes, you never saw the the attacking monster. Even though you know what is attacking, it's very creepy.

As has been said in all the hype, there is a new type of alien. It turns out to be a cross between a human and an alien, because of Ripley's DNA getting mixed with the queen's. While many have criticized it as looking too human, I thought they did well in its look. It doesn't seem as easy to just wipe out as the others were, because it's so human-like. This is Ripley's struggle in the movie, to kill these beasts she now feels kinship with. And it's particularly hard with the new alien.

Go see Alien Resurrection ASAP. You will be pleased. It has almost everything you look for in a movie: suspense, good acting, action, humanity, and many other qualities. Yes, it's not an Alien you've seen before, but that's good. So go see it.


Amistad
Reviewed by Geoffrey Elliott

This is what a film should be. This movie is what other people need to take a look at. A powerful film detailing the court battles of some Africans wrongfully sold into slavery, Amistad is a 3 hour epic that everyone ought to set aside time for.

You know the outcome of the film before it even starts. It's a foregone conclusion that good will prevail; would we expect anything less? Of course not. The magic of this film is the getting there, watching such talented individuals display their work. To start with, the acting is superb. Everyone has by now heard of the new star Djimon Hounsou, so I won't bother much more than to say he gives a stunning performance, emphasized more so by the fact he does it without speaking more than a few understandable words. His facial expressions and the tone of his powerful voice are enough to give you the feel of his character.

Matthew McConaghey and Morgan Freeman both do nice jobs, as do the rest of the cast. But in my opinion Anthony Hopkins takes over the scene as soon as the camera lays on him. Such a talented man, I am constantly amazed at the range of characters he is able to play, and his John Quincy Adams in this film is another to add to his long list. His portrayal of a crotchety but kind old man is enough to make anyone love him like a grandpa, and his stirring speech before the supreme court is enough to make you want to cheer.

Let's not forget the wondrous influence Spielberg has on the film. Because you know it's Steven at the helm you should also know his usual crew of incredibly talented associates are also on hand. The pure visual experience is wonderful. The angles all seem perfectly chosen, and some of the long running cuts give the actors a real chance to shine. In contrast with Schindler's List, Amistad is in color, and I think it would have been a mistake to film it any other way. One particular shot of Hounsou, looking up from his feet into a night sky with a flash of lightning would have lost a lot of power if you could only see grayscale, and not the thousands of subtle colors involved. In the shot Djimon's skin, already dark, appears as black as can possibly be, highlighted with hues of blue and white. It's a wonderful image, and just one example of the incredible work that's easily evident in this film.

I shouldn't expound any more on the film, because I hope that by now you plan to see it, if you haven't already. If you are any fan of movies, you will get a definite thrill out of this flick. It's a film that reaffirms the faith of moviegoers in Speilberg after this summers The Lost World. But then, I doubt anyone really lost it.


Kiss The Girls
Reviewed by Jeff Walters

In the past month I've managed to see just two flicks and unfortunately both of them were fairly dissappointing. With a cast including Morgan Freeman and newcomer Ashley Judd, I had some high hopes for Kiss The Girls. Reviews had been fairly mixed with most people agreeing that it would have been very good if not for the second half of the movie. I see what they mean. What starts out as an intruiging 'Silence of the Lambs' type movie starts to go downhill at the one hour mark and crashes nose first into the ground in the final scene.

On the bright side, the acting was terrific. Morgan Freeman's character (forensic psychologist Dr. Alex Cross) was very similar to the one he played in Seven just a slightly different job description. Despite this feeling of there being nothing new in Freeman's performance, he does play this kind of character extremely well and does his best to hold up the movie's shaky foundations. Ashley Judd's is a pleasure to watch as the 'one that got away', Kate McTiernan, but the character she was written doesn't do her justice. Though her Kate shows a lot of toughness in the early stages of the film, in the end she does degenerate into a stereo-typical 'Damsel in distress' who has to be rescued by our hero Morgan. The character does also expereince occasional bouts of 'total stupidity' particularly in the scenes set in California....you'll catch yourself several times sitting there shaking your head and saying - "Why the hell is she doing that!" But this is the scriptwriter's fault, not Judd's and in the first hour when Judd is really given a chance to shine, she exhibits a fair amount of depth as an actress. The supporting cast did their job well, but none of them are really given enough screen time for the character's to be more than standard stock.

Best scenes? Well, I don't want to spoil the movie too much for those who haven't seen it yet, but the part that I really found memorable was the scene in Kate's house when the killer arrives......Judd does a great job in conveying the outright frantic terror of the situation. A scene that could have been memorable but wasn't is when Cross discovers the hidden lair of the killer. The lead up to this scene is very suspenseful and sets the heart pumping, but what follows is too short and really goes off in the wrong direction.

The ending was just a pure let down and even worse - a major cop out. Unbeleiveable cop out actually. When the killer's identity is finally revealed it will leave you dumbfounded....simply because it makes no sense that he would be the killer. Unlike Seven, Silence of the Lambs or Copycat, the writers decided that the killer had to be a character in the movie who the audience had already been introduced to. That is not necessarily a bad thing, as usually this allows viewers to put together the pieces of the puzzle themselves and guess the killer's identity, but not here. Because nothing points towards this character, nothing. All the things discovered about the killer early in the movie really rule out the possibility of this character being the person responsible. It really seems like the writers threw all the cast member's into a hat, pulled out a name and decided - "Yeah, he'll do"

All up this movie started off well, but really lost the plot as the movie went along. Definitely not in the class of Silence of the Lambs, but well worth a look for fans of Morgan Freeman. I may have been a little harsh in giving this flick only 2 1/2 stars, but the ending was just too bungled to give anything higher.


The Peacemaker
Reviewed by Jeff Walters

Disappointment #2. Well not so much a dissappointment, everyone I'd talked to before hand regarding this movie had made it clear that this was nothing special. But I still was hoping to be pleasantly surprised by 'The Peacemaker' which truth be known was actually made over a year ago but only released recently. Not to be though. Ordinary is the word that pops to mind when I think of this film. Plain ordinary.

The acting is not really worth focusing on much because the two lead characters were so weak and undeveloped. The audience feels no real attachment to Kidman or Clooney's character (particularly Clooney's brain-dead Colonel Thomas Devoe) and the two emotional sequences between the two fizzle badly and seem like carbon copies of each other. The villian was actually not too bad, the writers opted for a little extra originality here by making him an ordinary man with very little fighting skills.

What saves this movie from being an outright stinker is a couple of nifty action sequences that kept the audience involved to a certain degree. The first of these is at the start of the film which involves two trains and some nice camera work. This scene is practically given away in the previews for the movie but the scene is fresh enough so that it sets up a nice tense atmosphere. The special effects for the resulting nuclear explosion that closes the scene is fairly budget, but doesn't looks so cheesy that it ruins the scene.

The best scene is really no contest and appears about two thirds into the film. A trio of helicopters penetrates Russian airspace in an attempt to halt a truck carrying some very dangerous cargo before it can cross the border into Iran. This scene is a real show stopper from start to finish and really grabbed my attention after my mind was starting to drift from the dull and somewhat idiotic earlier parts.

The climax sequence in the streets of New York City is pretty well done and does put you on the edge of your seat to a certain degree when everyone is madly searching for a bomber. This however leads to a fairly dull and predictable confrontation scene that we've all seen before many many times.

Now onto the 'idiotic earlier parts' I mentioned above. What I am referring to here is a lengthy sequence that occurs around 40 minutes into the film. This involves Kidman and Clooney 'interrogating' a trucking executive in his own office and then their following escape. This part was so dumb it defies description. Seriously. Suspension of disbelief, once again, only stretches so far. Devoe's actions in this series of events are simply S T U P I D. Unfortunately stupidity is a common thread throughout The Peacemaker.

The Peacemaker failed at the box office and it's not hard to see why. It's a long time since I've seen weaker chemistry between male and female leads. The movie's saving grace is some exciting action sequences that draw the auidence back in and that's the only way it got 2.5/5 stars in my book. See it if you feel you can survive till the 1 1/4 hour mark when things start to pick up.


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