The follow up to Aliens few of us wanted to see

Rating: 6/10 (2 January 2009)

When I first saw this movie I absolutely hated it. It totally invalidated the ending of Aliens, I didn't like most of the characters (who were hard to tell apart), and I found it to be a depressing body count movie. My feelings have mellowed a little since, and while I still consider it fairly poor at least it wasn't as bad as Alien:Resurrection.
*** Spoilers follow *** I think the first problem most of us had were the deaths of Hicks and Newt. After the ending of Aliens we'd come to love these characters, and to kill them off in such a way was a huge turn off.
I soon realised the only character I cared about aside from Ripley was the Doctor (Charles Dance), but he died fairly early and it soon became obvious that Ripley was going to die too (with an Alien inside her).
So the bald guys get killed one by one and I couldn't care less.
On the plus side some of the visuals were good, and the movie was successful in evoking a dark and depressive tone. But with no emotional involvement or interesting plot, the experience was just flat.
After the first two movies in the franchise, this had a lot to live up to, and in that respect, and like so many third installments, it failed.