Alien³ (1992) User Reviews

bad timing (editing problems?)

[sezai_crane · 7/10 · 5 May 2001]

I saw this movie for the third time now and I hoped that I might enjoy it a little bit more than the first two times. But, though I really did my best to like it, I was disappointed again.

But then, there are moments when I thought: hey, this could be very good, but it just doesn't work, it just doesn't touch me at all, so what is wrong with it? Maybe I just don't see it the way it is intended?

After all this is I think the truth about this movie: like it is, you can't see it the way it is intended.

I just can't believe that someone who directed such a solid and compact movie as Se7en, could make such a horrible mistake: there is no story, there is no center, the whole thing just falls apart in pieces when you watch it.

I think this is due to some wrong editing (and maybe this was caused by a not thoroughly thought trough scenario, but that I can't say). There were several moments when I thought: hey, why is this happening now, it should happen minutes ago and moments when I thought: why is this happening right now, it just spoils the enjoyment of suspense, they should show this way later in the movie. And there were scenes I thought: my God, why didn't they cut this piece away, it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Like the 'running scenes' closing to the end: you just can't make head nor tale of it, they're just running around, while you never get what they're plan actually is and how they would like to make it work. You just wait till they're done and get on with the 'story'. This is just annoying as it is. But I think what the director meant was to create this feeling of being lost in endless tunnels without ever really seeing it from a bird's view, to run and hope you will get somewhere, with only the help of your fear and the intuition it brings with it. Done well, this could prove to be some really exciting and nerve-cracking sequence, a real build-up to the grand finale.

There were also moments when I thought the music was kicking in way too early or too late, making it some kind of a mere commentary instead of accompanying and enforcing the action (like it is so well done in Star Wars or The X-files just to name a few).

I think a better editing could make this movie a whole new experience, getting things at the right moments and making it one whole again, like it proved possible with "Blade Runner". I for one wouldn't mind to see it one more time, but only the way it was probably intended, so I hope they will give the director a chance to remake this movie and to prove that it is a good one after all.

In defense of David Fincher

[RebrandSoftware · 7/10 · 21 May 2008]

I just watched this again. I've seen Alien and Aliens countless time, but have only seen Alien 3 once and that was pretty much enough for the last 15 years.

This movie is really just a waste of time, because the few good ideas and interesting things that happen are completely overshadowed by the illogical plot, worthless characters and slasher feel (you could replace the alien with any other movie monster, no problem).

I don't think this has anything to do with David Fincher, though.

He did not write the story or the script, and those areas are where the major problems lie.

Think of all the other movies he has directed since then:

Seven, Fight Club, The Game

Those are three of my all-time favorite movies, and the ones I didn't list above, like panic room, are still good movies.

I just can't believe that it was Fincher causing the problems here, but I can believe that he could be easily pushed around by a studio during his directorial debut (maybe even their fall-guy?). Blame the studio for letting this P.O.S. go into production in the first place.

Disappointing when compared to the first 2

[canucks_88 · 6/10 · 4 October 2007]

Not in the same league as the first 2 Alien films. The special effects were well done, and while the action scenes were excellent, there weren't nearly enough of them. Nothing against director David Fincher, but I would not put him in the same class as Ridley Scott and James Cameron (directors of the first 2 films). This movie did not have a great flow. For the better part of an hour, we're left listening to dull dialogue, before the action picks up. At least with the first Alien film, the suspense kept up the pace of the movie. Also, aside from Lt. Ripley, none of the other characters are the least bit interesting in this film. This movie is enjoyable, and better than a many sci-fi movies out there, but I would not consider this one to be a classic.

Ripley's Nightmare!

[Hel3n · 12 May 1999]

I think I'm being overgenerous in saying this third 'attempt' was disappointing. First off I was devastated by the way Hicks and Newt had been killed off and what can I say about poor Bishop being chucked into the rubbish?

Secondly you don't really care for any of the characters like in the previous Alien movies. It didn't help much that they were all bald and so you couldn't tell them apart!! Other than that this film isn't bad (and Resurrection) if you consider this. They never happened! Ripley is still in Hypersleep, having one long nightmare provoked by her experiences on LV426. After all she did end Aliens with Newt asking her 'can I dream?'. So that's what's happened. She'll wake up marry Hicks,adopt Newt and live happily ever after.(Yeah? and then they'll return to earth and discover that Hudson hadn't really died, he'd escaped the aliens clutches, found an abandoned ship and took off before the place was nuked!) Now I'm dreaming! O.k, but seriously I think if they must make ANOTHER alien film, they should try and answer the questions raised from the original movie like...

-Where are the aliens from in the first place?-Where did that boneship come from and what/who was the dead pilot?

Not as good as the first two

[freaky_dave · 6/10 · 15 March 2006]

Alien 3 was a letdown of a sort when compared to both Alien and Aliens, classics in their own right. Sigourney Weaver returns as does Lance Hendriksen in two different roles. But even though Weaver is there, the movie just doesn't have the same power as the first two films.

Ripley (Weaver) crash lands on a prison planet and is taken in by a doctor (Charles Dance). But the Alien has followed her again in a different way, and goes about destroying the inhabitants of the planet. Once again its up to Ripley to destroy the monster.

The acting in this film was pretty good, and the visuals are amazing, but this movie, as directed by David Fincher, is way too dark and depressing when compared to the first and second films. This film leaves us with no real hope for anyone. Yes there are some genuine scares to be found here, and like I said the film has a good look to go with quality acting. Too bad that the director took it down this despairing road with a horrible ending that I never could accept.

When compared to the first two movies, this film is second rate. However, it is still much better than Alien Resurrection which followed. That movie, to me, was a waste of time and money.

Not as good as the others (as if you need telling)

[heywood100 · 6/10 · 23 May 2003]

After the brilliant Alien, and the maybe even better Aliens, what was the obvious progression? That's right, Alien Cubed. That's something of an optimistic title though, as this is certainly not Alien to the power of three. Actually, the only real problem with Alien3 is that everyone involved in it, with the exception of David Fincher, Sigourney Weaver, H.R.Giger, and maybe Charles Dance seems to be completely useless. The acting is (with the exception of the above) uniformly awful, truly dreadful. The clunking dialogue is not helpful to their cause.

Fincher does a decent job with what he has to work with and his past in music videos doesn't make the film too flashy and disorientating. Particularly impressive is the scene with the alien's point of view while it runs along the ceiling. But the whole film is let down by the disappointing visuals. Where the first two films had darkness and dinginess, or just sheer scale to impress you with, Alien3 just has a rust coloured prison planet that looks like something from Dune. Only worse. This is the downfall of the film - if the visuals had been better, the films other many bad points could probably have been ignored.

It should've never entered the triology status.

[piajartist · 6/10 · 12 January 2003]

Alien took my breath away, and was the defining movie that reeled me into Sci-Fi. Aliens had even more aliens and then came the queen. Alien 3 didn't need to be told, the story wasn't convincing. Perhaps the fatal flaw was setting it in a space prison. It's hard to care for characters who are murderers and rapists. I wouldn't waist the time to watch this but you should definitely watch the first two.

An unfortunate dissapointment

[JasonT413 · 6/10 · 25 January 2004]

The long delayed sequel to James Camerons Aliens turned out to be a mediocore affair. I remember going to the local movie theater in my teens to see this film with my brother and I was so dissapointed. It just seemed like an inferiour rehash of the first film. No characters to feel a true sympathy for (though Charles Dance's character gets more depth in the new special edition release). Watching the documentary that comes along with the new re-releae you can plainly see the rough time the producers and writers, etc. had in coming up with a story for the third film. In the end what we got was a brave effort but a failure in comparison with the first two films. The fourth one in the series was a better return to form for me anyway.

Alien 3: Assembly Cut. Sci-fi for grownups.

[StrontiumAE · 10/10 · 21 February 2010]

Before Se7en and Fight Club but after Alien and Aliens came visionary director David Fincher's Alien³. The third in the popular franchise, but easily one of the most hated, Alien³ is a grim allegorical tale about life, death, sin and redemption. And it is perhaps because of the weighty themes of this film that many fans of the franchise quickly turned their nose up at it.

Directly following the events of Aliens, the film's surviving character's escape pod crash lands on a prison planet filled with Double Y Chromosome convicts who have now found religion. Unfortunately one surviving alien came with the pod and it is not long before it starts feeding off the prison population.

A stark contrast to director James Cameron's flashy sci-fi action romp 'Aliens', Alien³ is more of a grim psychological horror where the optimism of the first two films are crushed under a near nihilistic tone persistent in this one. However it is this dramatic departure from Cameron's sequel is what gives Alien³ an edge above its predecessors. In addition to a grim storyline littered with quasi and overt religious references, Alien³ also features all of the hallmarks that make David Fincher one of the most popular movie directors around today. Those low camera angles, stark lighting and filtered colors reminiscent of Se7en, Zodiac and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, are all present in Alien³, in addition to some very stunning cinematography and a haunting score by Elliot Goldenthal.

The performances of the three main leads: Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton and Charles Dance, are amazing in spite of the weaknesses of the screenplay. It is remarkable that despite all this film had going against it, in its highly publicized development hell (that included a script that went through several extensive rewrites before, during and even after filming had finished), the final product is still a masterpiece, albeit a flawed one.

If you watch the 'Assembly Cut' version of Alien³ , which is over 30 minutes longer than the theatrical release, you will quickly understand why it is indeed one of the most underrated, but also one of greatest sci-fi monster flicks ever made, and why it quite suitably completes the trilogy in the most fitting manner. Although many complain about the doom and gloom of this feature, this final installment in the trilogy is also the most uplifting. Looking beyond the downbeat nature of the film, Alien³ is still essentially a story about hope, and the putting aside of differences to selflessly help achieve a common good. In other words, this film is about redemption. Alien³: Assembly Cut is not only one of the best films in the franchise but it is also one of David Fincher's best efforts to date. 9 out 10.

Weak

[Manthorpe · 6/10 · 2 January 2004]

I blame the downfall of the Alien films partly to this movie. It's when the movies went from being masterpieces to pieces of s***e. It's not as bad as Regurgitation but it's leaning that way. More towards that than towards it's predecessor.

Weaver is almost unbearable too look at with her shaved head, and Hicks and Newt are dead. That right there is enough to p*** me off. This movie could have been so much better than this. And come on now, a prison setting? Please. Don't waste my time.

I usually like David Fincher so I can forgive him for this, but it still stinks. 6/10.

A potentially great movie ruined by some unorthodox stylistic decisions.

[colossu5 · 3/10 · 22 January 2006]

First off, I'd like to say that had Alien and Aliens never been filmed, Alien3 would've made a good movie just as it is. Unfortunately the reality is that since both of the first 2 movies were great, this movie had high expectations. Ultimately, Alien3 is not worthy to be accepted as part of Alien series.

Alien3 had some good acting and music and some excellent cinematography I thought. It was also darker than the first 2. Also, the concept of crashing in a maximum security prison was a good one I thought. But since this review only rationalizes a 3/10 for this movie, I will spend the rest of the time explaining what made this movie a bad one.

First of all, it completely ruins the second Alien movie for three reasons: Firstly by introducing the egg that had been on board that had hatched into an alien. How the heck did that egg get there anyway? No explanation is offered. Secondly by introducing the fact that Ripley somehow had a queen alien chestburster inside of her. How did that get there? No explanation is offered. Thirdly by killing off 2 of the main characters from "Aliens", Newt and Hicks, right at the very beginning, giving them senseless deaths. Many say this was for "shock value". Shock value my ass, it was just a letdown. Killing them off halfway through or something would've been more effective. Besides, they could've developed Newt and Hicks a lot more. The sole fact that the innocent child Newt has to live in a maximum security prison makes for some good character development. Hicks would've been a bit trickier, but with some creativity they could've come up with something (i.e. maybe Hicks went to prison when he was younger and he's scared of them now and has to deal with it). Maybe if Hicks and Newt were the first victims, it would've been more satisfying (and then Ripley would be a loner again, which is what her character is all about IMO, as nobody would believe her about the alien again, etc).

Another element lacking in the third movie is the absence of one of the dominant themes in the first 2 movies, about the protection of the innocent. Ripley went out of her way to protect Jones (in Alien) and Newt (in Aliens) but there was none of her "motherly" role in this movie. I felt this element was important to the first 2 movies, yet it became non-existent in the third.

Another negative point was that I feel this movie sort of ruined the image of the alien. Having the alien run after people at high velocities and having the people herd it like a sheep is not what the alien is supposed to be. The aliens are supposed to be slow, sneaky, and stealthy and pop out from behind you when you least expect it. By making the alien run, they were trying to make it scarier, but they actually made it less scary. Come to think of it, the scariest bad guys in movies are never fast moving creatures. And the aliens are supposed to be smart, not stupid. Remember in Alien how the alien was hiding in the escape ship at the end? Or in Aliens how the queen used the elevator and then stowed away? A final point that made this movie bad was a stupid stylistic decision: Kill off the main secondary character, Clemens, halfway through the movie. They had just begun to develop his character, and he could've been the next Hicks or Newt, but no, they kill him off halfway through. Then instead they try to develop the character of Dillon, however, they only get to developing his character halfway through as well. As a result, we have 2 half-developed characters (both of which die by the end), leaving Ripley the only character the viewer really cares about (unlike in Aliens where we had Hicks, Newt, Bishop, Vasquez, Apone, etc).

In conclusion, this was a well made movie with terrible stylistic decisions that essentially ruined it. The only good decision was to have Ripley sacrifice herself for the protection of humans at the end. This was done very well and ended off the movie well (albeit it was a sad ending).

A lot like the first one

[damoviecritic · 8/10 · 9 January 2006]

I am one of the people who doesn't dislike this film because it is different, but because it wasn't different enough. Oh no, there is an alien behind you. Look out, it is picking you off one by one. I really didn't think it even tried to do something else. I would've preferred Alien 4 to this one if that one wasn't campy. However, if you liked the first Alien the best out of all the movies, you will probably enjoy this film more than I did. I just kinda enjoyed the combat of Aliens more than the thriller movies. However, Alien was one of the first to do this, so it is a testament to the timelessness of it's concept which we younger viewers take for granted.

The Essence, Killed Before the Film Even Starts

[nycritic · 6/10 · 18 February 2006]

When the very glue that held the air-tight plot of ALIENS together is torn off its fabric before the film begins, proper, can any amount of "clever camera angles" and "moody set pieces" fill in the void that is left? That is the question I ask myself because at the time this film was released I was in awe of David Fincher's dark images and clever editing, most notably in his videos for Madonna. True, ALIEN 3 tries to bring back the dread that the first movie contained and has some very unnerving sequences, but numerous re-writes leading to Newt's off screen death and Ripley's impregnation by an alien (as forced as any life-like expression on a mannequin) killed any emotional resonance that otherwise it would have had. This is what happens when money takes over and creativity flies out the window. Everything becomes a color-by-numbers cat and mouse game where everyone is a mouse running away from an alien. Ripley makes some questionable choices which are out of character early in the film and the time it takes for her own alien to pop out raises the issue: does the chest burster come flying out only when the plot deems it so?

Disappointing

[tmceneane · 10 June 2008]

It's a shame they ruined the Alien movie franchise with this third installment. The direction and photography is good (David Fincher), but everything else is pretty awful. Killing all the characters from Aliens, even Ripley, kills the movie for me. The first two had amazing characters, this movie replaces them with undeveloped, bland prisoners whose main contribution is to beef up the language rating and serve as cannon fodder for the alien. The only characters that stand out are killed off too early. And what's the point of this story anyhow? The plot is much like the plot of the first movie, the scenes with the alien are not scary and there is no suspense, thanks to the lack of characters the audience cares about.

Overall this movie was a major disappointment, it not only failed to live up to the high standards of its predecessors, but it paved the way for a further decline of this once promising franchise.

Too bad about the script

[Quicksand · 7/10 · 17 October 1999]

Great direction. David Fincher's first film, and he did quite well considering, but the script was 100% awful, a piece of crap from beginning to end. It completely ruins its predecessor, "Aliens," and was clearly only made to make a quick buck.

Fun to watch, but this movie is not a sequel. It's like an interesting nightmare Ripley had on her way to... wherever.

The weakest of the four films to date

[Rob_Taylor · 6/10 · 17 December 2002]

Alien 3 is not a bad film but it is the weakest of the four that have been made. Its just nowhere near as good as it could have been. If you take the premise that sequels need to introduce something new in order to keep the audience interest and progress the story, then this movie doesn't do a lot. The only new thing I learned about the aliens from this film, is that they can apparently use any creature as a host and that the resulting alien offspring inherit some of the characteristics of the host. And thats all.

Alien introduced us to the alien, Aliens gave us the hive structure and the rest of the breeding cycle, this gave us very little more, apart from the fact that most criminals appear to be English.

The casual killing off of two of the survivors from Aliens was a really weak way to get them out of the way at the start of the film.

This film is basically a rehashing of the first one - a single alien and a bunch of people fighting it with limited resources. Not good, not bad, just average.

High on looks, low on story

[Mitch-25 · 6/10 · 3 April 2002]

Although not quite as bad as most critics thought, this was a pretty bad movie. It looked great. All the cool camera angles, and style shots were very good. However, the story really sucked. I usually like Weaver. She is a very good actress. But, in this one, she just seemed to sleep through the movie.

If you want to see a GOOD Alien movie, see the second one, Aliens. If you want to see a good David Fincher movie, see either Se7en or Fight Club. Both are much better.

The Alien saga gets turned into an average monster-movie.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 6/10 · 2 May 2007]

After two extremely atmospheric, haunting and tense movies, this third Alien movie came as a bitter disappointment. It picks a more monster-horror approach, in which the 'monster' wants to kill everyone. Yes, it's true that in a way "Alien" wasn't much different, only difference was that in 1979 this approach was still new and original but not by 1992 standards anymore.

Problem is that this movie is fairly standard and mostly predictable. Basically this movie isn't much different from most other genre movies, in which a monster is on the loose and on a killing-spree. In this movie you exactly know who is going to die and when. It also really kills the tension the movie. The only thing that makes the killings still good and interesting is the amount of gore used for it.

The more 'monster' like approach of the alien also wasn't a good movie and it differs from the first two alien movies. The alien has a too prominent part in the movie and has way too much screen time. The mystery and horror of the character(s) in the first two movies was they the movie didn't showed them in many scene's, at least not fully. In the first two movies the alien was more presented as an animal, killing for their own survival. Not as a monster who kills for pleasure as in this movie is the case. This can be explained because of the reason that this alien in this movie is different from the aliens in the first two movies but this is not satisfying enough, considering that it is never explained in the movie why the alien acts and looks different.

The movie went too various re-writes, even during filming and suffered heavily from the studio's- and producers influences. No wonder that David Fincher doesn't want to have anything to do with this movie. With other movies he definitely showed that he is capable of directing both atmospheric and tense movies ("Se7en", "The Game", "Panic Room"), so it's definitely not has fault that the movie failed. As a matter of fact, the visual style and atmosphere of the movie still make sure that this movie is a better than average one.

There are some nice looking and claustrophobic sets featured in the movie. On the other hand the movie unfortunately felt the need to put in some computer effects and even though they of course look quite good for early '90's standards, it's terribly outdated and fake looking now.

The movie is carried once more by Sigourney Weaver's performance. Ripley is such a great and strong female character. It also shows courage and dedication to the movies and character that Sigourney Weaver shaved her head bald for this movie. Too bad that none of the other characters really work out in this movie. They mostly remain flat and uninteresting. The movie does feature some interesting actors such as Charles Dance, Ralph Brown and Pete Postlethwaite but all of their talent is wasted in the script, in which they get very little interesting to do or say. The re-appearance of Bishop also feels more of an obligation than it serves a real purpose, though fans won't complain about it and neither would I really. I love Lance!

Not the greatest, most tense, most original genre-piece around, not even on its own.

6/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Massively underrated. Silly, silly people.

[thethinman777 · 9/10 · 5 June 2012]

Make no mistake; Alien 3 has flaws, all of which are right up on the screen for you to see and hear. Noted for having a script which was being written alongside principle photography - it shows: Dialogue swings from great to terrible in a heartbeat, identikit prisoners suddenly start to develop a glimmer of character.....then vanish without a trace. Vincent Ward's original idea sounded brilliant but gutless suits saw fit to butcher it and force out a rushed lovechild of the first two films (one alien/bigger group of humans). The best example of the problematic script comes when Dillon asks Ripley how she got impregnated by the alien and she replies with; "I don't know, in hypersleep I guess." For a franchise that had already built an established mythology that simply wasn't good enough. I saw it when I was fifteen (just managed to pass for eighteen) and even then I could tell it had problems.......but I absolutely loved it.

All these negative reviews are understandable but have any of you seen the restored version? Probably not. If you still haven't seen this film then ONLY watch that version as the original cut has the biggest plot hole of all time. I feel that with this newer version Alien 3 can be enjoyed for what it is: Dark, viciously nihilistic, visually stunning, atmospheric and a great standalone sci-fi film. No, it doesn't sit very well with Alien and Aliens, and Fincher was obviously up against it the whole time, but a poor film? No. Too much hard work and style is present and correct for that to be true. You people do disappoint me so.

More Is Less.

[screenman · 6/10 · 19 August 2008]

You really do have to feel sorry for Ms Ripley; she must be the unluckiest lady in the galaxy. Lost in space for 57 years, outliving her own daughter, blamed for sabotaging a spaceship, stitched-up over a 'phoney' alien, demoted from flight-crew to fork-lift driver, stricken with ongoing nightmares and then tricked into going back and re-living them again. On top of all that, she finally gets infected by the alien, jettisoned once more into space, a child she fought so hard to save gets drowned, a marine she begins to develop romantic attachments to is killed, and finally; she crash-lands on a penal colony crammed with murderers and rapists - and oh-deary-me, another alien.

You wouldn't perhaps want her as a friend.

'Aliens' - an absolute cracker of a movie - ended on something of a victorious note. Most everyone was wiped-out, but the aliens were done for and she found a surrogate daughter to replace the one she outlived. There was also a nascent love interest in the form of Corporal Hicks. It was about as near to a fairytale finish as any genuine dragon-slaying horror movie could get. And the franchise should have ended there. Sadly; it didn't. Those grasping Hollwood moguls could see only more dollar signs.

'Alien-3' had an impossibly hard act to follow. There were no more shocks or suspenseful moments left in the system, no more creepy scenarios in dimly-lit mysterious places that hadn't already been exploited, no more pools of drool to leave you wondering what came next.

There was quite an interesting beginning, with brief explanatory glimpses sequenced to the accompaniment of bewitching choral voices. Some interesting visual effects were complemented by a suitably robust audio and sound-effects package. But after that it was simply more of the same: Ripley the knowing witness attempting to convince the sceptical inexperienced. Until the beast makes a showing, and once again she has to save everyone's ass. Feminism can be taken to implausible lengths.

It's yet another small, hostile world. We seem to spend most of our time in poor light, etc, etc. There are some interesting and equally crass mood sequences. At times, Ms Ripley becomes tiresomely evasive, especially with the doctor - well played by Charles Dance.

He heads a curious mix of British character actors that includes rumbustious Brian Glover as the colony's scathing warden, and Pete Postlethwaite as one of the inmates. It seems an unlikely place for Yorkshire lads to have wound up.

With an inevitability that is barely interesting, the alien begins systematically bumping them all off. None of the characters are particularly likable or memorable, so it's hard to care for their loss. Dance's character is arguably the most sympathetic, but he gets creamed pretty early in the list. The whole thing is pretty grim, dismal and down-beat. Ms Ripley herself commits suicide in the end (not that it spared us further sequels). The un-killable alien is finally killed in a way that is quite preposterous.

And that's more or less it - until next time.

It may be that I do the movie a dis-service, but as I say; coming hot on the heels of such an edge-of-the-seat smash-hit like 'Aliens' it could hardly assume any other guise than an anti-climax. If the first two episodes had been less entertaining this might have seemed to shine more brightly, but it wasn't meant to be.

Worth a watch if you get the chance, but it certainly isn't worth a purchase or changing you plans to stop in and see.

Since this outing there has been 'Resurrection', 'Alien vs Predator' 'Requiem' and probably 'Daleks Defy Face-huggers', with 'Blob meets Drool', each featuring Sigourney Weaver in increasingly silly situations.

But; money talks.

Stylish but Empty (And such a disappointing third chapter)

[paramitch · 3/10 · 6 August 2003]

(SPOILERS ALERT)

I know I'm in the minority on this, but I hated this chapter with the fire of a thousand suns. This was just such a disappointing direction for the series to go in -- I'm a huge fan of Alien and Aliens, and I walked out of Alien3 halfway through the first time I saw this, when I saw what they'd done to the lovely ending of Aliens. James Cameron made a fantastic, thrilling, pulse-pounding film with the second one, gave Ripley a well-deserved happy ending (complete with a new family) -- and this film goes and takes a dump all over it. It just seemed like a pointless and cruel choice for the series to go in.

Fincher may be a prodigiously talented director -- no argument, I'm a huge fan of his other work -- but in this case it's all overblown, overdone -- it feels more to me like a "look what I can do" film exercise than a Scifi film. I just wish the film had paid half as much attention to the script as Fincher does in setting up his shots. Fancy, too-long shots of blood spattering in slo-mo, predictable artsy shadows for the alien to lurk in, etc -- even upon rewatching this (it's taken me three times simply to make it to the end), I just didn't care, and it's obvious the filmmakers don't either. It's very cold, characters are dispatched on schedule, and oh, look at the pretty slomo.

On the good side, the acting is uniformly fine, with Weaver fantastic as always in a totally thankless role, and the cinematography is really gorgeous. People get slaughtered right and left but at least it's by candlelight.

Ultimately, what bothered me most (and still does) was Alien3's underlying humiliation of Ripley -- it was like they went out of their way to rob her of all previous happiness, then further degrade, debase, and humiliate the character until she dies a gruesome, painful and unhappy death. Um, OK. Nice ending.

Anyway, all you Fincher fans will probably throw things at me, but count me in as one of the minority who hated this. (I still love the rumor mill that says Joss Whedon's first draft of Alien Resurrection was to simply make all of Alien3 a dream. Works for me!)

Alien 3 is a disappointment

[seraftrev3000-2 · 10/10 · 8 October 2000]

All I have to say as a big fan of the Alien movies is that David Fincher was a terrible Director and the writers were not exactly thinking straight when they put out this horrendous flick about how a bunch of prison inmates "didn't" get attacked by an alien. You'll notice that throughout the movie there are 10-15 ,hell even 20-25 minute gaps where the alien isn't even on the screen. At least the first Alien movie kept the victims high while presenting a mysterious mood by having the alien appear randomly and unexpectedly.Aliens on the other hand made the viewer feel pity for the soldiers that died because we knew so much about them. Alien 3 was cold and dark and because the characters were never formally introduced we as the viewer didn't know who was getting killed nor did we care. The emotion of the movie was silent and the beginning as well as the ending was bitter.

Pales in comparison

[hatesdragons · 6/10 · 31 May 2001]

" This is rumor control, and these are the facts.." Alien 3 pales in comparison to the previous two films. It seems David Fincher wanted to combine the elements of the first two films to create a dark, foreboding action movie.Something just didn't work. For one thing there isn't anyone in the film to truly like, after all, everyone is a double y chromo and prone to things like murder and rape. Not exactly the cast you get all teary-eyed over when they meet the alien. Only Riply (Sigourney Weaver) remains from the other films, and she is acting a tad strange in this one too. For example: Ripley is asked to remain in sick-bay because the men have not even seen a woman in years. Remember too, that these are men that are all lifers, having no qualms about committing horrid acts. So what does Riply do? She goes to the mess hall to have lunch with them. Ripley was a very smart woman in the other two films, what happened? Too long in cryogenic sleep? At one point Riply tells the inmates "I've never seen one(the alien) move Quite like this one does." I guess she hasn't seen too many poor cgi effects before. This is the weakest of the alien series. That is, of course, until they made Alien Resurrection.

Why bother?

[wrightylew · 3/10 · 18 April 2008]

Alien and Aliens are two of the finest films I've ever seen. The first is a twisting thriller with a class act storyline. The second is one of the most amazing pieces of 80s action you'll see. The third is a brown, dull, wet depression which just goes from bad to worse.

I hated it. I'd so much rather it've just been up to the audience to decide what happened to Ripley, Newt and Hicks. But no, they felt it needed 'clearing up'.

Rubbish. This is a film that should NEVER have been made. See also: Back To The Future 3, Terminator 3 and Robocop 3. The question is 'why bother?'. The answer is obvious - money.