Alien: Resurrection has all the hallmarks one would expect from a film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet: the peculiar brand of humor that is entirely his own, the familiar actors from previous films, even the color pallete of the cinematography—the greens, browns, etc. Why someone handed him the keys to direct Alien: Resurrection in the first place was beyond me. He’s not the one of the usual suspects. Based on the movies in his ouevre, I would say he was a terrible choice by the studio. All the same, it could have been fun, right? The absurd, whimsical, macabre of Jeunet doing a spin on the Alien franchise? More than anything, this film suffers from being too much like a Jeunet film with all its idiosyncrasies. It is tragically torn between fulfilling what people think it should be as an Alien film and the type of film Jeunet likes to create. I knew this going into it, but still held onto dear hope that it would be a fun mess at the very least. Well… thus ends Jeunet’s brief flirtation with Hollywood, and not only that, manages to carve out an arguably permanent spot in the Alien canon as the biggest stinker too.

/****star