Our Flick of the Week is “Alien Resurrection,” the fourth in the metal-teeth-and-slime series, with Sigourney Weaver’s tough-as-nails Ripley character having been cloned from drops of her blood following her self-sacrificing death in the third film.
But forget the plot, please. The filmmakers certainly don’t care about anything but presenting a parade of gooey, grisly moments with the snapping-turtle-like alien creatures popping out of host bodies and hissing behind glass walls. And when the little and big aliens aren’t attacking, there is no rest for the weary moviegoer, because a team of screaming, drunken space bandits plots to use the monsters for its own end. The result is a film in which the humans and creatures compete to see who can shriek the loudest.
Popping up in this forced march through slimy body parts is the lovely, charismatic actress Winona Ryder, obviously out for a big paycheck. She, however, isn’t given a single scene worthy of her talent. Rated R. (star) 1/2
– FLUBBER. A dismal remake of two older Fred MacMurray comedies, mixing “The Absent Minded Professor” story with “Son of Flubber.” Which poses the question: Can one terrible movie count as two bad remakes? Robin Williams seems bored by the material, playing a forgetful college professor who can’t even remember his own wedding day. Actually, he relates better to an airborne computer helper in his lab that has a feminine voice and presence. Their relationship is mildly interesting compared with the tedious, bouncing rubber “Flubber” scenes, which culminate in a basketball game that is a ripoff of the original, 36-year-old movie. Projects like this make one very cynical about the movie business. PG. (star)
– BENT. The plight of homosexuals during the Holocaust is made trivial in this adaptation of a dated ’70s play about a couple of would-be lovers who try to outwit their captors and express their passion for each other behind barbed wire. Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” raised the bar for Holocaust stories, and this one seems too tame and too talky. Only Mick Jagger’s presence in a small role enlivens the experience. R. (star) (star)
– = New this week