The restored edition. Not the crappy studio edit.

Rating: 10/10 (21 July 2008)

The first time I saw Alien 3 I thought it was the best one of the entire franchise. So when I saw this two disc special edition in a shop and bought it I expected to see the classic Alien 3 I fell in love with at the beginning. What I didn't really expect was the added parts and how much they stick out from the original cut I'd grown so used to seeing over the years. Fincher's everlasting attention to detail is evident early on in his career but his ability to make the norm a menace is showcased even here. Alien 3 is, on the surface, just the next chapter is Ellen Ripley's nightmare encounters with a xenophobic alien with acid for blood and a taste for carnage, but look deeper and you'll see there is so much more to it. This film is so much darker than the other three in the sense that there is the human element which makes it so much more sinister. These rapists, murderers and so on that Ripley finds herself amongst adds to the already high tension of the movie. The exploration of the human psyche and its elements is an aspect which is becoming more and more closely regarded with Fincher's cinema, perhaps even paramount to it.
Charles Dance's excellent turn as a the prison doctor and love interest is soon destroyed by a regretful confession of his past whereby he killed for joy and sets a tough benchmark to be beaten. And, like the first two films, there is the obvious sense of sexism lurking amongst the men, when Ripley proclaims an alien is with them she is shrugged off and kept in solitary.
With all of this going on, it is easy to see what Ripley faces in this third chapter as she is not only pitted against the xenomorph once again but first she must convince the men there is indeed an alien with them, as well as survive the lusts of these very same men whom have not set their eyes on a woman in the flesh for years
Alien 3 is, undoubtedly, the true sequel to Ridley Scott's terrific first instalment, unlike Aliens which merely attempted to up the ante and better the original, Fincher's debut actually lives up to it and keeps it within the Alien realm but takes it elsewhere too.
Although in the strictest use of the term this version isn't actually David Fincher's "director's cut" of the film, this extended and restored version gives it more than enough justice and authorship so deserved of Fincher. Although nowadays, thanks to the precious medium of special edition DVDs, those visions can be seen unhampered, unadulterated and in their true, original and intended forms. Which, when you see the slightly altered scene of Ripley's self sacrifice at the end which doesn't have that God-awful clutching of the alien as she plunges herself into the molten iron in some laughable attempt at heroism, you'll be bloody well thankful for.
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