Alien Resurrection (1997)

Alien Resurrection is a science fiction horror film released in 1997 by 20th Century Fox and the fourth installment in the Alien franchise. The film was directed by French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with a screenplay by Joss Whedon. Alien Resurrection was the first film in the Alien series to be filmed outside of England, at Fox studios in Los Angeles, California.

In the film, which is set 200 years after the preceding installment Alien 3, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is cloned and an Alien queen is surgically removed from her body. The United Systems Military hopes to breed Aliens to study and research on the spaceship USM Auriga, using human hosts kidnapped and delivered to them by a group of mercenaries. The Aliens escape their enclosures, while Ripley and the mercenaries attempt to escape and destroy the Auriga before it reaches its destination, Earth.

Plot
Two hundred years after the events of Alien 3, military scientists on the outer space vessel USM Auriga manage to create a clone of Ellen Ripley, using DNA from blood samples taken before her death. They manage to extract the embryo of an Alien queen, that had been growing inside her at the time of her death, raise it and collect its eggs for further use. The Ripley clone, however, is kept alive for further study because of its improved healing abilities. They discover, that, as a result of her DNA being mixed a little with the Alien's during the cloning process, she develops enhanced strength and reflexes, acidic blood, and an empathic link with the Aliens. She also has the memories of the real Ripley

A group of mercenaries arrive in their ship, the Betty, delivering several kidnapped humans in stasis to the military in return for money. The military scientists use the kidnapped humans as hosts for the Aliens the alien queen has already hatched through the corresponding eggs, raising several adult Aliens for study on the way. The Betty crew is allowed to stay in the ship for a while for relaxation and soon encounter Ripley and realize how strong she can be by defeating a few of them very fast. Call recognizes her name and tries to kill her, because she came to the ship for that purpose, believing the alien may still be inside her and therefore she may be used to create more Aliens. Call came already too late. The Alien queen was already hatched from her, had grown, laid eggs, had already infected the kidnapped and they had also already born from inside them. After having matured, they quickly escape confinement by sacrificing one of their own, whose blood destroys the ground of their confinement. They damage the Auriga and kill most of its crew, including its commander. Ripley takes the advantage of the situation and flees together with the mercenaries and two of the surviving crewmen still inside the ship. Through one of them, military scientist Dr. Wren, they discover, that the ship's default command in an emergency is to return to Earth. Realizing this will unleash the Aliens on Earth, Ripley, the mercenaries, Wren, a marine named DiStefano, and surviving Alien host Purvis decide to head for the Betty and use it to destroy the Auriga.

As the group make their way through the damaged ship, several of them are killed by Aliens. Call is revealed to be an android after Wren betrays the group. Using her ability to interface with the Auriga ' s systems, she sets it on a collision course with Earth, hoping to destroy the Aliens in the crash and stops Wren´s attempt to use the Betty for himself. Wren then takes Call hostage, demanding she abort the collision in his quest to continue the experiment. Purvis in revenge for his actions stops Wren and holds Wren's head to his chest just as the Alien embryo he is carrying bursts through his ribcage, causing it to go through Wren's head and kill him. The embryo is then killed by the crew.

Ripley discovers that the Alien queen has gained a human ability from her DNA as well: now possessing a womb, it can give birth to live offspring without the need for eggs and human hosts. The resulting newborn, bearing a mixture of human and Alien traits, recognizes Ripley as its mother and kills the Alien queen and Dr. Gediman.

Horrified, Ripley flees to the Betty in the nick of time. She and the surviving mercenaries then prepare to flee, but the newborn hybrid has been chasing her. As they launch, the newborn hybrid attacks Call and kills DiStefano. Ripley kills it by using her own acidic blood to burn a hole through a viewpane, causing the creature to be sucked violently through the hole and into the vacuum of space.

The survivors finally escape in the Betty as the Auriga collides into Earth and explodes, killing the remaining Aliens on the way.

Reception
Alien Resurrection was released on November 26, 1997 and received mixed reviews from film critics. Roger Egbert of the Chicago Sun-Times felt "there is not a single shot in the movie to fill one with wonder", while Desson Thomson of The Washington Post said the film "satisfactorily recycles the great surprises that made the first movie so powerful". The film was a financial success, earning $161 million on a budget of $70 million.