Alien Resurrection or Alien 4 was going to be a correction of Alien3. Ripley was brought back, now more powerful than before, there are more marines, more guns and crucially more aliens. However the film did not fair well at cinemas. Many felt it a reworking of Alien and ditched the film rather unfairly. The film lacked the master-full horror of the first film and lacked the bloody spectacle and scope of action in the second. The fights with the aliens are small with the survivors never facing more than two aliens at a time. However once you get past the initial disappointment of the small scale action you can really appreciate its merits. And the same goes for the score.
All the scores for the Alien series apart from Elliot Goldenthal�s score for Alien3 have used or imitated Jerry Goldsmith�s original themes.
Frizzel�s main title is suitably dark and grand making a large statement of his own theme that strives and in many ways succeeds in emulating Goldsmith�s original and Horner�s themes whilst still being different, although only just.
The �Hypersleep� cue from Alien with its instantly recognisable 2 note flute chime rising and falling was successfully used, although altered by James Horner in Aliens and Frizzel successfully uses it in the second track as Ripley is taken out of cryo-stasis.
For the action cues of Resurrection Frizzel�s score really comes alive and individual. Whilst he still mimics the previous scores in places, much of the action music is his own with frenetic sections of bombastic orchestra mixed with electronic sounds and large frenzied statements of his theme.
The moments of horror in the score take a decidedly Goldenthal approach with twittering trumpets backed with discordant strings and a hollering electronic sound along with the wailing and rasping trombones which are a well known Goldenthal device. Unlike Goldenthal�s score however these sections of discord are short and never descend into mindless wailing or drumming.
The solid and coherent action music is highly enjoyable and sounds like the exciting big action thriller/chiller the movie should have been. Whilst they lack the power and driving force of the previous score�s action cues they instead opt for blasting bite. The action music rapidly changes tempo all the time as well as the motifs behind it and many of the motifs have a good deal of pace and certainly bite. In particular several sections of �The Aliens Escape� and �They Swim!...�.
The slower sections of Resurrection offer far less enjoyment. Frizzel�s use of strings follows a similar style to Dennis McCarthy in these sections with long notes acting as nothing more than a backing to brass.
However the last track �Ripley�s Theme� is superb. The strings perform a tender theme with far more depth than in the rest of the score with the brass giving backing of occasional statements of the theme. Add to that a haunting female vocal section and this is by far the most interesting climax to any of the film series scores.
Apart from a few of the quieter moments this score is worst let down by the CD sound quality. The recording lacks clearness and this greatly affects the power of the score on album especially in the action cues where the brass do not have the crisp power that they should. Aside from this the score for Alien Resurrection is john Frizzel�s best and it serves as a worthy 4th part to the series. It succeeds on most levels and is at the least a solid and enjoyable mimic of the previous scores that is slightly better than Goldenthal's score solely because of the 2 good lengthy action cues.
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2. Post-Op (1:20)
3. Docking the Betty (1:13)
4. Priva Son D'ogni Conforto (5:27)
From Handel's Julius Caesar and performed by Maureen Forrester
5. Face Huggers (2:10)
6. Call Finds Ripley (3:02)
7. The Aliens Escape (4:12)
8. Ripley Meets Her Clones (2:19)
9. What's Inside Purvis? (2:28)
10. They Swim... (6:28)
11. The Chapel (2:35)
12. The Abduction (3:33)
13. The Battle with the Newborn (6:03)
15. Ripley's Theme (2:14)