Compared To Alien & Aliens, It's An Atrocity. As A Standalone Feature, It's Not That Bad.

Rating: Null/10 (21 September 2014)

Alien³ often gets a lot of criticism from most fans of the first two chapters of Alien franchise & in a way it deserves that. In its very opening moments, this film makes a huge mistake of killing all the characters who survived in the last film, leaving behind only Ripley & thus taking the whole premise back to square one. Compared to Ridley Scott's Alien & James Cameron's Aliens, Alien³ is an atrocity. As a standalone feature however, it's not too shabby.
Alien³ opens with the shot of escape pod carrying the survivors of the last film crash-landing on a prison-run refinery planet, killing all but Ellen Ripley. However, on researching about what caused the crash, she finds out that an alien organism was on board with them all the time. As the new-born alien matures & begins its killing spree, Ripley tries to warn the inhabitants about the grave situation they are in & eventually discovers a deeply disturbing secret about herself.
Directed by David Fincher, the film marks his feature film debut but was a harrowing experience for him. Troubled production, numerous rewrites, shooting without a finished script, constant interruptions by the producers, creative differences & then a complete dismantling of the director's version by the studio & reworking the plot for its theatrical release, it's no wonder why Fincher left the project before production ended & still hates it more than anyone else.
Despite having more budget than the previous two chapters combined, Alien³ is still a huge downgrade in every filmmaking department. There is less suspense, less action, no real sense of direction & it's far more predictable than expected. The sets do provide an inhospitable look to the film but there is nothing impressive about it. Camera-work isn't that bad while editing is fine considering that it's the pathetic screenplay that's the main culprit here.
Coming to the performances, apart from the characters of Ellen Ripley & a couple more planet's inhabitants, the rest are present in the film as death fodders only. And although Sigourney Weaver chips in nicely as Ripley, others are found hamming like crazy in their given roles. The alien creature itself is given a new design but it's so poorly rendered that it never really looks like a part of the picture but a highly artificial entity superimposed on the screen.
On an overall scale, Alien³ manages to work in bits n pieces and as a standalone film is slowly gaining a cult following of lately. It is quite entertaining, some sequences are excellently filmed, Weaver manages to impress again but the negatives far outweighs the positives this time as it really makes you wonder where the hell all its budget was spent on considering its poor visual effects, not-so-impressive set designs & shoddily rendered alien. It's best to approach this film without expecting anything like its predecessors or else you're destined to hate it.
P.S. Make sure you grab the Assembly Cut instead of the Theatrical version for the former is little bit close to the rough vision David Fincher had in mind while crafting this feature.