Alien: Resurrection (1997)

At least the Alien-human hybrid is creepy.

Alien: Resurrection (1997): written by Joss Whedon; directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet; starring Sigourney Weaver (Ripley 8), Winona Ryder (Call), Ron Perlman (Johner), Gary Dourdan (Christie), Michael Wincott (Elgyn), Brad Dourif (Gediman), Raymond Cruz (DiStephano), Dominique Pinon (Vriess), and Dan Hedaya (General Perez):

Sigourney Weaver resisted post-Alien 3 attempts to get her into another Alien movie until Fox offered her enough money (reportedly $11 million) to change her mind. That Fox hired Jean-Pierre Jeunet to direct seemed like a good idea at the time, though his most acclaimed movie, romantic comedy Amelie, was still years away. 

Alas, hiring a French director working in a second language may have led to some of the problems that caused screenwriter Joss Whedon to later explain in 2005 "It wasn't a question of doing everything differently, although they changed the ending; it was mostly a matter of doing everything wrong. They said the lines but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong they could possibly do. That's actually a fascinating lesson in filmmaking. Because everything they did reflects back to the script or looks like something from it. And people assume that if I hated it then they'd changed the script...but it wasn't so much they changed it, they executed it in such a ghastly fashion they rendered it unwatchable."

Pretty much true. The most interesting thing about Alien: Resurrection is wondering if Joss Whedon read the first four Frank Herbert Dune novels. Ellen Ripley died at the end of the dull but stylish Alien 3. Here, she's been resurrected as a clone, her DNA blended with the alien she was hosting throughout Alien 3 until she threw herself into some molten metal at the end of the movie. So she's a super-strong, super-fast, somewhat predatory Ripley who remembers her past life because the alien DNA stores memories of the host. Or something. And she's got acid for blood!

This is similar to a lot of material in Dune and its sequels. Duncan Idaho gets resurrected again and again as a clone because Leto II in God Emperor of Dune believes Idaho to be the only being who can figure out how to kill him (I'm not explaining that!). Ancestral memories are a recurring theme in the Dune series. So, yeah, that's interesting.

Everything else, not so much. The crew in this movie do seem like a bit of a dry run for Firefly, at least in terms of What Not To Do. Winona Ryder is comically miscast as a hardass member of the pirate transport Betty. Dan Hedaya is comically miscast as the General in charge of the secret alien breeding program on the spaceship Auriga. Sigourney Weaver does her best. Brad Dourif is a delight as always, one of the five or six most reliable character actors in the history of the universe.

The story is dumb. On the bright side, FTL travel in the Alien universe has gotten a lot faster in the 200 years since Alien 3. Gun technology has regressed to about 1915. Everything is stupid. I like the design of the final Alien/human hybrid. Well, its head is hellacreepy. Whatever. Still not as stupid and pointless as Alien: Covenant, though. Not recommended.

Minotaur

The Cabin in the Woods: written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard; directed by Drew Goddard; starring Kristen Connolly (Dana), Chris Hemsworth (Curt), Anna Hutchison (Jules), Fran Kranz (Marty), Jesse Williams (Holden), Richard Jenkins (Sitterson), Bradley Whitford (Hadley), and Sigourney Weaver (The Director) (2011): In a perfect world, The Cabin in the Woods would, at the very least, get a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination for 2012. But it's a horror movie and it's a comedy, so it won't. Nonetheless, it is a humdinger.

Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, who worked together on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, conjure up something special here: a postmodern, metafictional slasher movie that also works as a nifty addition to the Cthulhu Mythos and as a commentary on the tastes of both horror audiences and horror-film makers. Light-footed and well-acted, it never becomes leaden and it never punches the audience in the face with its cleverness. It's a Charlie Kaufman film without the underlying pomposity.

Five college students on Spring Break go to a cabin in the woods. And then...well, frankly, you should experience it yourself. The ads and trailers for the movie gave way too much away as it is. Like the Scream movies, The Cabin in the Woods plays with cliches of the modern horror film. Unlike the Scream movies, it never becomes what it parodies. As one character realizes, "We are not who we are."

If nothing else, this may be the first horror movie that could be read as a metaphor for U.S. drone strikes on targets in Pakistan. Or I may be overthinking it. But you'll never look at a bank of elevators the same way again. Or a Japanese horror movie. Highly recommended.