Could have been just as good as the first two had it had a better director

Rating: Null/10 (12 January 2006)

In my comment for ALIEN, I referred to ALIEN 3 as awful. After re-watching the film a second time, I now have come to realize that is not awful like I once thought, it's horrendous beyond belief. It ultimately suffers from a poor choice for director. David Fincher has his fans, but I have never quite warmed up to his style. Like Tim Burton, his style is an acquired taste. His style certainly doesn't fit ALIEN 3. In his feature film debut, Fincher directs as if he was directing one of his music videos, which damages the picture beyond repair. It comes across as if MTV was behind it. There are those who will say I am being unfair to Fincher since he walked off the project before editing even began and the production was an extremely troubled one, but regardless of how much studio interference comes into play, he ultimately was the man behind the camera and its his directing that makes ALIEN 3 the worst in the series. Fox should have put a more experienced director at the helm. As much as I hated the directing, the script is actually okay. In fact, had Walter Hill directed from the script he co-wrote, I have a feeling ALIEN 3 could have been just as good as the first two in the series. There are some good lines, and some intelligent ideas. It's a case where the script is better than the movie itself. 1/10