Alien 3
Rating: 1.5/5
By: Nathaniel Simpson
David Fincher is a common name in the world of cinema, making films like Fight Club and Gone Girl to make him one of the most influential directors of the past twenty years. But, he had to get his start somewhere, and that start was by helming Alien 3, the follow-up to two fantastic sci-fi horror films. While there were lots of ideas and a great potential for this film, this movie just feels like a misguided attempt to expand the world and characters, one that seems more like a cluster of half-baked ideas than a comprehensive and well-executed film.
The film begins right where Aliens leaves off, with Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and the remaining survivors from the second film on-board an escape pod after fighting off the Xenomorphs that were attacking them. However, when her pod crashes into a wasteland inhabited by inmates, she discovers she is the sole survivor and wants to find out what the cause of deaths were for her comrades. When the alien life form finds its way onto this planet, Ripley must face her fears one more time to destroy the aliens before they kill her and the rest of the people inhabiting the planet.
I am one of the people who believe that it was a grave mistake for this film to cheapen the ending of James Cameron's sci-fi masterpiece. By killing Newt and the other survivors from the second film, they sort of ruin what Ripley and her team had done throughout the whole second film. Now, if they were going to do this, I would forgive them if they were able to tell a story and introduce characters that rivaled how I felt about Newt and the others on board. To put it plainly, they are not able to achieve that the entire film, and makes me hate this film more than I would have if they didn't start the movie like this.
From there, the whole movie feels like a clump of ideas and discussions that the filmmakers had on how to continue the franchise. Sure, they have some good ideas and reasons for why they do things, but nothing really translates well into the final product. The story is all over the place, and simply doesn't fit into what Ridley Scott and Cameron set up. They took this story that works on every level as a space film and ground it to one planet, inhabited by unlikable inmate characters and forcing Ripley to have a more nihilistic view of the world. While it is understandable while she feels like this, it makes her character seem less of a hero and more of a spiteful character that is willing to sacrifice themselves at the drop of a hat. It amazes me how they would think this would be a good third film in this franchise, and why they felt compelled to tell this story.
Weaver really tries her hardest to save this film, and I think she does a good job reprising her role as one of the most famous sci-fi heroines. The charismatic attributes are there for parts of the movie, but I really dislike what they did to her character for this movie. This doesn't feel like the Ripley we have got to know for the past two movies, and seems like a whole other character entirely. From there, the other performances here from Charles Dance, Charles S. Dutton, and Pete Postlethwaite, to name a few, are very memorable or anything to write home about. While this could be a reflection of the actors' abilities, I think it is more of a thinly written screenplay that doesn't let these iconic actors do their characters justice.
While it is hard to find any redeeming qualities in this film, there is one major aspect that makes the movie somewhat bearable - the graphics and the use of the alien life forms. I mean, come on, we have the alien dog introduced here in this film, such a terrifying new addition to the roster of xenomorphs. The aliens and the terror they wreck is decent for the most part, and I think the long-tracking chase shots work rather well for a film like this. While the horror and violent parts of this film are truly few and far between, it gives the viewer something to look forward to in this rather bleak and boring picture.
Fincher has gone on to say he despises this movie, and I don't blame him. While it is a somewhat impressive directing debut by filmmaking standards, this movie was just plagued from the beginning, with an incomprehensible and bleak story that leaves the audience feeling rather bored and annoyed than entertained and frightened. Alien 3 is just the start of why it was a bad idea to continue on with the Alien franchise after the first two movies, and it only gets worse from here.
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