Alien³ — Gritty, down and dirty fight to the finish

Rating: 8/10 (2 May 2013)

Alien³ is, to me, the unloved child of the Alien series. If not as good as the other two preceding it, David Fincher's attempt was a successful one nonetheless. It came full circle by going back to "weaponless" confrontation with the beast. I think that, combined with a revolting dirty low-tech environment, rebuffed most watchers.
The good. Imaginative environment. Tight scenario with many chills and thrills. Captivating story. Great photography. Excellent costume and dialogs. Simple and touching relation between Ripley and the doctor. Very interesting characters. Excellent cast.
The actors. Sigourney Weaver outdid herself with this evolution of her heroic persona, a truly great performance. Charles Dance seems to be the true complement to our female lead and played it to perfection. The whole lot of convicts and jailers was astonishingly good, I'll just give special mentions to Paul McGann, Christopher Fairbank, and Charles S. Dutton.
The bad. Unfortunately, the alien's CG effects are starting to show their age, and it can be distracting at time.
The ugly. The intro. It's not logical. There can be no eggs there. The queen had lost her egg producing sac. That's probably what turned off most hardcore Alien fans. It did me. It took me a while to go past that and see the quality of this film. Since this blatant mistake was the basis of the whole scenario, it left very few advocators.
The result. A great sci-fi thriller. Should be seen with an open mind if you like the first two installments of the franchise.