M O V I E S Alien Resurrection Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet Starring Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder - - - - - - - - - - - - ALSO THIS WEEK Welcome to Sarajevo A visceral, angry and riveting tale of reporters in a war zone - - - - - - - - - - - - NOV. 21 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Eastwood leaves the Southern decadence no place to grow John Grisham's The Rainmaker Coppola hits predictable -- and surprising -- notes - - - - - - - - - - - - NOV. 19 Lives 'R' us A&E's "Biography" assembly line never rests - - - - - - - - - - - - NOV. 14 The Wings of the Dove A gorgeous tale of wicked people and sexual intrigue The Man Who Knew Too Little Saved by Bill Murray's prickly charm One Night Stand Adultery and its long-term consequences - - - - - - - - - - - - RECENTLY A full list of recent reviews, interviews and table talk. - - - - - - - - - - - - Blue Glow DAILY TV PICKS - - - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE MOVIE ARCHIVES TV ARCHIVES

SIGOURNEY WEAVER IS IN FINE FORM IN THE LATEST IN THE "ALIEN" SERIES OF FREUDIAN-TOOTHED SLIMEFESTS, "ALIEN RESURRECTION." BY LAURA MILLER | EVERY FIVE OR six years, Sigourney Weaver returns to us in the form of Lt. Ellen Ripley to battle the drooling, whip-tailed beasties she first tangled with in 1979's "Alien." Seeing this serious actress reinvigorate her iconic status (and, no doubt, her bank account) at the well of the "Alien" franchise, like Keith Richards checking into a Swiss clinic for a blood change, has turned out to be one of pop culture's more pleasing rituals. While Jean-Pierre Jeunet's new addition to the canon, "Alien Resurrection," has its faults, Weaver isn't one of them -- in fact, she's never been in finer fettle. We last saw Ripley in David Fincher's austere "Alien 3" (1992), shorn and Christlike as she self-immolated in the furnace of a prison planet in order to protect humanity from the alien larva by using her body as a host. That installment was as grimly existential as James Cameron's "Aliens," with its operatic inter-species bitchfighting, was baroque: "Alien" as envisioned by Beckett. Jeunet ("Delicatessen," "The City of Lost Children") brings his own sensibility -- blackly humorous, visually elaborate, obsessed with bodily functions -- to the franchise. "Alien Resurrection" should provide a field day for graduate film students everywhere, so enthusiastically does Jeunet seize upon the queasy sexual and reproductive anxieties the franchise exploits. Like all "Alien" films, it's a haunted-house story, with Ripley and her companions fleeing the nasties through the labyrinthine corridors of a space station and devising a scheme to exterminate a litter of the creatures bred by the usual team of foolish, cocksure scientists. This time, however, Ripley herself is the product of those scientists, a clone concocted from blood left behind by the original model. Somehow (and no, it makes no sense biologically), they needed to do this to replicate the baby monster Ripley was carrying when she died 200 years before. Once the scientists remove the larva, they decide to study the surviving host. It turns out she's only part human. What are the other parts? Well, let's just say that in space there's only one selection in Column B. Thanks to this ludicrous but serviceable premise, we have a new, superhuman Ripley -- stronger, faster, smarter and considerably more detached and ironic. "Something of a predator, isn't she?" remarks one of the scientists after Ripley subdues a motley gang of smugglers in a basketball court contretemps. Weaver's delightful to watch in that scene (one of the film's most enjoyable): tall, lean, fit and seamlessly confident. Joss Whedon's screenplay puts the usual action-hero wisecracks in Ripley's mouth, but the piquancy of hearing them uttered by a thoroughbred like Weaver lessens the groan factor considerably. Weaver obviously relishes playing this feral, sarcastic new Ripley, and her pleasure is infectious. The cranky banter of the smugglers -- who include Winona Ryder as a girl mechanic with a secret identity, Ron Perlman as a scar-faced lout and Michael Wincott as the captain whose sexiness marks him for an early death according to classic "Alien" formula -- hearkens back to one of the most likable aspects of the first "Alien," its depiction of the boredom of everyday space travel. After delivering their contraband cargo of hijacked bodies to the scientists, the smugglers sit around drinking home-brewed rotgut ("What do you put in this shit, battery acid?" sputters Ryder. "Just for color," Perlman replies) and watching a home shopping channel specializing in lethal weapons ("This is a really good show, man"). Once the aliens escape from their cages and begin their inevitable rampage, "Alien Resurrection" careens through a series of exciting, well-executed action sequences and Jeunet goes hog wild with the franchise's underlying psychosexual symbolism. Every "Alien" movie has its share of dripping passageways, right? Well, Jeunet first plunges his characters waist-deep in a cooling tank, then puts them through an underwater chase sequence. The alien's mouths have long been the quintessential vagina dentata -- complete with a bonus phallus dentata that shoots out at will -- so Jeunet ups the ante by having Ripley tear the penile tongue out of a dead monster and offer it to Ryder as "a nice souvenir." The scientists call the computer that operates the space station "Father," and when Ryder taps into it and takes over, she snarls "Father's dead" at the head baddie. Needless to say, this movie is crammed with gooey mucus; weird, fleshy folds and crevices; sinister orifices; huge, revolting egg sacs and vulvic wounds. Unfortunately, it's also overloaded with ideas. Toward the end, these start to pile up and the action sputters as various characters stop to explain what's going on. These briefings don't help much, and a climactic sequence (owing much to David Cronenberg's horror classic "The Brood") winds up being hopelessly chatty, confusing and overblown. With one hand Jeunet and Whedon have given us a thrilling new Ripley, but with the other they've taken away the lean, suspenseful plot lines that characterize the best in the "Alien" films. Still, the movie ends on an intriguing note, and however much this installment stumbles, it leaves you primed for the next. Ripley herself, of course, shows no sign of slowing down. SALON | Nov. 26, 1997

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