One mess of a movie

Rating: 1/10 (20 March 2009)

Alien 3, the third installment of the series, is essentially a boring, stylish remake of the first movie. Supposed to be dark and dreary, it is unintentionally funny and full of plot holes, thanks to constant studio interference and script changes: Alien eggs and face huggers keep appearing out of nowhere and characters vanish into thin air. The characters' actions make no sense at all: For example, Ripley wakes up in the infirmary station of a maximum security prison for sex offenders and is warned about the psychopathic nature of the inmates right away... So what does she do? She takes the first chance she gets to leave the infirmary and hang out with the inmates, and stays with them even after they try to rape her! Yeah, right...
Even considering the messy script, Weaver is surprisingly wooden in this, whatever happened after her career-highlighting performance in Aliens? The plot of Alien 3 is totally predictable if you've seen the first movie. There is a lot of gore, but absolutely no suspense in this movie, it simply fails to scare the audience. Like Ridley Scott once said, Alien 3 tries to be Alien but it cannot be frightening - we've seen it all before! The prisoners are the most boring characters ever written, their struggle in the endless corridors and tunnels of the prison drags and drags, and even the religious allegory falls apart when Bishop II reveals himself as the stereotypical company bad guy who was never interested in saving Ripley in the first place, so there was no sacrifice on her part - she would have died anyway! I laughed tears at her pathetic Jesus Christ pose when she jumped into the molten lead. Good riddance I thought, this little slut who threw herself at junkies, rapists and murderers had nothing in common with the Ripley we knew from Alien and Aliens. If Alien 3 succeeded at one thing, it was to thoroughly ruin Ripley's character.
All told, Alien 3 is one mess of a movie. If you're interested in the series, I recommend to watch the first two and stop right there. Alien 3 & 4 are so bad it's better to ignore them altogether.