Alien Resurrection (1997)
DIRECTOR: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
CAST:
Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Michael Wincott, Dominique Pinon, Gary Dourdan, Dan Hedaya, J.E. Freeman, Brad Dourif, Leland Orser, Kim Flowers
REVIEW:
Like many a film franchise, the Alien series started out strong, then didn’t know when to quit. Greed to make more money overrode the artistic integrity of stopping when the series was ahead and had fresh, original places to take the story. Alien Resurrection is at least not the dreary, depressing experience of the morbid Alien 3, but that’s damning with faint praise. Continue reading
Apollo 13 (1995)
DIRECTOR: Ron Howard
CAST: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, Kathleen Quinlan
For those old enough to have watched the April 1970 Apollo 13 crisis unfold live on television, Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 may bring back strong memories. For those who did not experience it at the time, it may serve as a fascinating history lesson. For everyone else, it’s a well-constructed docudrama, and a tribute to what one character refers to as NASA’s finest hour. Continue reading
Alien 3 (1992)
DIRECTOR: David Fincher
CAST:
Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Charles S. Dutton, Brian Glover, Ralph Brown, Pete Postlethwaite, Lance Henriksen
REVIEW:
The phrase ‘third time’s the charm’ doesn’t ring true for the Alien series. Alien was a solid start, and Aliens represented the series at its peak; everything else was downhill from there. Given the notoriously tumultuous production, with the storyline going through various and wildly contrasting versions, ever changing directors, a multitude of screenwriters, clashes between directors and producers and lead actress Sigourney Weaver, and the production running significantly over budget, with millions of dollars wasted on elaborate set pieces that never ended up being used due to the script in continuous rewrites throughout filming, it’s a small wonder the movie ever ended up getting finished in halfway watchable form at all, but in retrospect I’m not sure if it was worth the effort. Alien 3 is a dark, dreary, and depressing experience. Which is not to say that Alien or Aliens were uplifting movies, but the third entry smacks of a lot of pointless nastiness without redeeming qualities. Continue reading
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
DIRECTOR: Nicholas Meyer
CAST:
William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, Kim Cattrall, Christopher Plummer, David Warner, Iman, Kurtwood Smith, Rene Auberjonois
REVIEW:
WARNING: This review discusses elements of the film’s plot
The end of an era came in 1991, when Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country hit theaters, featuring the adventures of the Enterprise with her original crew for the last time. Continue reading
Aliens (1986)
DIRECTOR: James Cameron
CAST:
Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein, William Hope, Mark Rolston, Al Matthews
REVIEW:
Aliens, along with James Cameron’s sci-fi hit five years later, 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day , is both among the best sci-fi action thrillers ever made, and a rare example of a sequel surpassing the original. Continue reading
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
DIRECTOR: Nicholas Meyer
CAST:
William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Ricardo Montalban, Kirstie Alley, Bibi Besch, Merritt Buttrick, Paul Winfield
REVIEW:
WARNING: This review discusses details of the film’s plot.
After the sluggish and pretentious special effects/philosophical showcase of the highly-anticipated but disappointingly-received Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the powers-that-be returned Star Trek to the roots that had made the original television series so popular: a focus on the characters, and ship-to-ship duels that harkened back to what creator Gene Rodenberry himself had likened to “Horatio Hornblower in space”. The result has various dated elements, but remains worthy of its place as one of the better feature films featuring the original Enterprise cast.
Continue readingAlien (1979)
DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
CAST:
Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, Veronica Cartwright, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt
REVIEW:
In some ways, Alien could be seen as moving the Halloween-style slasher horror movie into outer space, but its achievement was more than that. While the best-known sci-fi at the time was the fairly lightweight Star Wars and Star Trek, with Alien Ridley Scott looked through the glass darkly. The movie is a dark experience, a slow-moving thriller that gradually and inexorably builds up the suspense until certain scenes and the climax in particular ascend to nerve-wracking tension. It’s the kind of movie that’s dark and harrowing to the extent that it’s questionable to call it conventionally “enjoyable”, but it is undeniably skillful filmmaking that shows a keen understanding of building suspense. Continue reading