Fincher singlehandedly destroys what could have been a great series

Rating: 1/10 (9 July 2003)

It is very rare that I rate a movie as low as I rate Aliens3 (one star out of ten). There are lots of bad sequels in the history of film making, so that in itself is not unusual. Yet it wasn't enough for David Fincher to make a mound of garbage such as this, in the process he felt it necessary to completely obliterate the Alien movies by totally disregarding everything that had come before his film. I'm not saying he had to make the same kind of movie as the previous two films, but to kill two main characters in the first five minutes of a sequel, two characters that we had invested so much time in in Aliens, and to do it without blinking an eye is not only inexcusable, but makes Alien 3 so downbeat from the start, it's hard to care one iota about what comes afterward. The closest thing I can compare it to would be if George Lucas had killed Princess Leia And Han Solo in the opening scroll of The Empire Strikes Back.
As if all this wasn't bad enough, there is not one character in this movie that we care about or gives us any reason to care about them. They are just there to supply food fodder for the Aliens when they decide to pop out and move the plot along. Then again, we see so little of any of the characters as Fincher decided not only to make a "dark film" but to film it in the dark as well. I guess this is what one calls atmosphere. I call it covering up your big boo boo.
Poor Sigourney Weaver. She does try. Yet we know so far in advance what is going to happen to Ripley, that we are not shocked or saddened by it. We only know that after the hell she went through in the first two films, she sure deserved a lot better than this mess.
When you singlehandedly destroy a great series, you get a one rating, and you get that one because I can't give you a zero. Next Class Please.