Part Three... Still Going Strong?

Rating: 7/10 (12 October 2010)

Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) crashes on a planet populated entirely by prisoners. Her crew is dead, and she must now take up residence among rapists and murderers until a rescue ship arrives. Unfortunately, she is not the only living thing that survived the crash.
The question you have to first ask is this: can first-time director David Fincher adequately handle the directing ability after such great films from James Cameron and Ridley Scott? A third film could have easily crashed and burned, but Fincher is a man to be reckoned with and admirably keeps this one afloat. Perhaps not the best in the series, but respectably good by "part three" standards.
Starting from scratch (the crew is dead and the scenery is new), Fincher is free to create his own little world, and he does. This film is less claustrophobic than the first two, but more dystopian in many ways. Also, perhaps more importantly, it is the transition point in the series from science fiction to horror. (The whole series falls into both, but with the levels of blood and gore exponentially larger here, there's no question of this story's genre).
Perhaps the only thing that could have been improved was the utilization of the prisoners. There is one minor "attack" scene, but overall the people could have been any sort of breed and the story would not change. What would have aided this film is a full-scale riot or jailbreak. Imagine Batman having to face everyone in Arkham Asylum -- here it would be Ripley against scores of killers while simultaneously trying to stop an alien infestation! Howard Maxford calls the film "imperfectly scripted" and Mike Mayo points out his opinion that it "went through several writers and directors and emerged as a fairly unintelligible mess." Could it be better? Yes. But I think looking back now, it's not as bad as made out to be.
While the theme and feel of the film is not spot-on with the first two, it still is a decent incarnation in the "Alien" story, and having Lance Henriksen briefly appear kept the continuity strong. You cannot have an "Alien" film without Sigourney Weaver, but the more you invite back, the better.