not as bad as id heard.... but poor compared to the first 2

Rating: 5/10 (22 July 2009)

I only saw this movie for the first time a few weeks ago, id heard many dismal comments and reviews on it (including here on IMDb) and was not exactly jumping in anticipation. First of all, its fair to say i think, that the first 2 are classics.... Ridley Scott's masterful original and James Cameron's very different but equally enthralling sequel... fast forward 5 years and the concept of another one crops up. Why? In movie history hardly any of 3rd sequels better the originals... terminator, godfather,Halloween, nightmare on elm street, superman, batman,spiderman,scream, shrek, (the only example i can think of is lord of the rings : return of the king, which may well be the best in the series, only because the story came to a phenomenal conclusion), so there would be no reason to suggest that the alien Franchise would or should be continued... but therein says it all... alien and aliens were both very profitable so another one would surely bring em in... and whilst it did just that, the movie itself had so much to live up to it was never going to be on a par with its predecessors. David Fincher is a fine director( seven, curious case of Benjamin button) but the mistakes that were made has lead fincher to virtually disown the movie. so what exactly is wrong with it? by my reckoning, fincher had realised that to make an alien movie to similar to the first or second was not what the fans or even he wanted; so his choice to attempt to do something different from Scott and Cameron was ultimately( as well as the successes of the previous instalments) to blame for the movie not being all that good. killing off 2 major characters right in the beginning was his first mistake,and setting the movie with people you don't really give s damn about, well thats also a error. bar one or 2, we cant really get animated about such unlovely people. 3rdly, a very poor CGI monster which sadly (see first 2 movies for real monsters)takes ALL the suspense out of it, its so obviously fake looking its laughable. combine these three flaws with a dull, leggy (fincher probably wanted atmospheric)direction and lack of suspense or pace and towards the end we actually want it to be over... something you could never say about the first 2. we must forgive fincher his mistakes, he was young and inexperienced.he has matured into an excellent director, instead blame the greedy film company who couldn't resist another chance to make a quick buck and destroying a great horror series in the process.