RIPLEY'S BACK FOR NEXT ROUND AS A CLONED AND CONFLICTED ACTION MACHINE; SIGOURNEY WEAVER RESURRECTS TENACIOUS HEROINE IN FOURTH `ALIEN' THRILLER.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

``Well, sequels aren't cool,'' Sigourney Weaver says.

Few would disagree with her. For the most part, sequels are more costly, but creatively cheapened knockoffs of popular films. Exhibit A: ``Ghostbusters II,'' in which the statuesque New Yorker reprised her role as a demon-haunted foil for Bill Murray's quippy come-ons.

One of the few exceptions to the diminishing-returns-of-sequels rule has been the ``Alien'' series. The first, in 1979, not only marked the Yale-trained Weaver's movie starring debut, it set a standard for sci-fi scariness (and graphic gore) for all space thrillers that followed.

With the 1986 follow-up ``Aliens,'' director James Cameron improved on Ridley Scott's original concept, turning it into an intense model for the modern humans-vs.-giant-bugs subgenre (mined this year for ``Starship Troopers,'' ``Mimic'' and ``Men in Black''), and making Weaver's Ellen Ripley an Oscar-nominated model of murderous macha and maddened maternal instincts.

David (``Seven'') Fincher's grim ``Alien3'' (1992) seemed to fall into the sequel ambush that ``Aliens'' so brilliantly fought off. Yet a closer look at the stylish if dank thriller, set on a prison asteroid and featuring Weaver shaved bald, reveals a movie percolating with logical extensions of the whole monstrous series' theme about the relative value of human life. When Ripley, with a baby alien gestating inside her, immolated herself at the end, it seemed a fitting finish to a played-out series.

But now she's back in ``Alien Resurrection,'' directed by the French master of macabre kinkiness, Jean-Pierre Jeunet (``Delicatessen,'' ``The City of Lost Children''). In this one, Ripley is cloned back to life, along with her Alien ``baby,'' 200 years after her death. Of course, the military scientists behind this effort are only interested, as usual, in the perfect otherworld killing machine.

Not too pure

But there's been a bit of overslop in the DNA mix. The new Ripley is also part Alien. The once-reluctant Weaver simply couldn't resist that.

``I was dead, I was sincerely dead,'' Weaver, casually elegant beside a Beverly Hills hotel pool, pleads with her trademark intelligent wit. ``I'd felt I'd done the right thing, I'd avoided being in `Alien Vs. Predator' (a woebegone idea to combine 20th Century Fox's two goriest sci-fi franchises). But then I read the script for `Resurrection' (by ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' creator Joss Whedon), and I was told that Winona Ryder wanted to be in the film.

``I felt like I'd walked into some weird time warp,'' she reveals. ``The script was so provocative scientifically, so sort of timely, so funny. And it gave me a chance to play the Anti-Ripley, the one who's not trying to save the world anymore.''

At 48, with a distinguished stage and film career that includes Academy Award-nominated work in ``Gorillas in the Mist'' and ``Working Girl,'' ``Dave,'' ``The Year of Living Dangerously,'' ``Death and the Maiden'' and the currently playing ``The Ice Storm,'' Weaver viewed cloned Ripley as a great chance to cut loose.

``There's something really wonderful about putting on leather and just being,'' she says, ``without any kind of cultural obligation to do anything that's stereotypically feminine. It's like a breeches part in Shakespeare.''

Or one of those ``When Animals Attack'' specials.

``I was playing the animal `sensoriness' of all that physicality,'' Weaver says of Ripley, whom many consider cinema's one true action heroine. ``I think when Ripley's with the Aliens in this film, she really feels like one of them. And as I played it, I discovered that, when she's with humans, she feels like an Alien, too. To me, it's very modern to look human and be this other thing. Everyone looks the same, but inside, who knows what kind of animal they are?''

Hoop dreams

Maybe it's a Chicago Bull in Weaver. She trained with Valley basketball legend Nigel Miguel for a key scene in which Ripley takes on a group of space smugglers with nothing but a round ball - then sinks a reverse dunk while her adversaries writhe in agony.

``Four takes,'' she says, proudly, of the number of tries it took to film the over-the-shoulder basket. ``And they didn't even want to give me that, they wanted to trick it. I was like, `Trick it? After all my work?'

``When I was playing it, I thought, `Jeez, I've missed my vocation,' '' adds the close to 6-foot actress. ``I fell in love with basketball so hard. Of course, I haven't kept up with it. Pickup games in New York are pretty aggressive; maybe if I could find some polite, laid-back people to play with in L.A. ...''

Then again, maybe not. Sigourney Weaver is famously disinterested in all the extracurricular activities many movie stars indulge. The wife of theater director James Simpson, Weaver devotes time to his new Manhattan playhouse, their 7-year-old daughter Charlotte and the Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights.

Other than that, though, ``I don't know how other people do it,'' she shrugs. ``I guess I'm not well-organized, or compartmentalized, but I'm constantly behind. It's like, gotta read this, gotta write that person, gotta have lunch - that's what life's about! Try to be home by 6 every night, pick up my daughter at school a couple of times a week. That's all I can really get organized for.''

The daughter of a quintessential organization man - Sylvester ``Pat'' Weaver, the NBC-TV president responsible for creating the ``Today'' and ``Tonight'' shows - Weaver has succeeded by following artistic rather than careerist instincts. Drawn to risky or challenging roles, she's managed to remain a top star for nearly two decades, longer than the average, more commercially calculated actress' career stays hot.

A body of work

Things should keep warm if Weaver's future projects pan out: a romantic comedy directed by Ann Biderman, the scriptwriter of her recent thriller ``Copycat''; another comedy called ``Dear Rosie,'' directed by ``The Full Monty's'' Peter Cattaneo; and a drama based on Rafael Yglesias' novel ``Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil.''

At the moment, Weaver's work in ``The Ice Storm'' is attracting heat. Based on Rick Moody's novel and directed by Ang Lee (``Sense and Sensibility''), the 1973-set movie tracks the hilarious and tragic misadventures of some well-to-do Connecticut suburbanites who try to integrate free love and recreational drugs into their coldly comfortable lives.

Weaver plays Janey, a no-nonsense housewife whose affair with a neighbor (Kevin Kline) is not providing the satisfaction that she craves.

``The role is that of the funny, dry bad girl,'' Weaver explains. ``But I'm surprised when people describe Janey as an ice queen. What I see is that she's impassive with all of this underlying unhappiness, and she has zero expectations for it getting better. She's just trying to live in the moment, but it's funny. Some people identify with Janey because she's very human and upfront. Others just see her as an addition to what my husband calls the cast of characters I've played that make people who see me coming down the street cross to the other side.''

Cloned Ripley may prove to be another one of those unnerving creations. But Weaver thinks the latest model fits right in with what has made ``Alien'' one of the most resonant film series of the era.

``The movies are very provocative, unsettling explorations into what might happen to us as a species,'' she explains. ``People always say that it's a great ride. But even if it's not a roller coaster all the time, to me it's a ride that takes you ahead in time to a place where you get to live through this nightmare filled with a lot of humor, elegance and relevance.

``And you get scared out of your wits. It's really satisfying.''

Satisfying enough to make you sign up for a fifth ``Alien'' bloodbath?

``I've told Fox I'm not going to do more than 25,'' Weaver says with a facetiously curling lip. ``Because otherwise I'm selling out, don't you think?''

CAPTION(S):

Drawing, 2 Photos

Drawing: (Cover--Color) she's back

Believe it or not, Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley in `Alien Resurrection'

Jon Gerung/Daily News

Photo: (1) Sigourney Weaver set the standard for action heroines playing Ellen Ripley in ``Alien'' and its three sequels, including ``Alien Resurrection.''

(2) Now a clone with some alien in her DNA mix, Ripley's loyalties are divided in ``Resurrection'' as crew members Winona Ryder, right, and Ron Perlman, left, fight for their lives.