Flawed but worth watching

Rating: 6/10 (19 August 2003)

PRETTY BIG SPOILERS HERE.
The story of Ellen Ripley's struggle against the alien ended in 1992 with 'Alien3' The film is flawed, there is no doubt about that. The production of the film stands as a pretty good textbook of how not to make a film and yet David Fincher managed to pull something out of it. And something worth watching.
Firstly, I'll skim through the plot. 'Alien3' sees Ripley crash on a prison world after her ship malfunctions. There she is forced to confront not only the single alien that has emerged there, but the alien growing inside her.
Second, I'll say that "Rett Mikhals" opinion is unfortunately far too common to be dismissed as an 'Aliens' fanboy and it's a shame because once you dig past the poorly pasted puppet effects and the fact they killed off Newt and Hicks ("OH MY GOD! THEY KILLED OFF TWO OF CAMERONS CLICHE CHARACTERS! OMG HOW COULD THEY?") You get a pretty decent film. It seems a lot of people, I won't name any names, were expecting another no-brainer actionfest like 'Aliens' and they were disappointed when they saw they were actually trying to restore some of the dignity of 'Alien' Eh, I'll stop referring to his post any more because he quite clearly isn't trying to review 'Alien3', he's trying to avenge 'Aliens' ("a dog struggling for half an hour" WTF?)
As I said before, 'Alien3' tries to hark back to 'Alien' and it isn't very successful. We've seen the alien so many times they're starting to wear off. Scenes like David muttering "here kitty" are far too blatant for there own good. Where 'Alien3' succeeds, I think, is the atmosphere. The muted browns and oranges really help to portray the feelings of helplessness in the prison colony and the tragedy of Ripley's life robbed by the alien. The religious overtones of Jesus, Satan and Judas are interesting. This isn't a cash-in sequel. Despite the flaws, the makers of 'Alien3' did put some thought into it.
Unfortunately, on 'Alien3's test viewing the people they showed it to were braindead. As a result, Fox took their advice to rip gaping chunks out of the film leaving huge plotholes in their place. That is why we hardly know any of the characters. That is why we have an inexplicable egg on the Sulaco (originally an adult alien was on the ship) For the record, the beginning sequence of 'Alien3' is a nightmare Ripley has, hence the dreamlike quality of it. Only one egg is shown because Ripley doesn't know she has been impregnated yet.
In all, 'Alien3' is a troubled sequel that bravely tries to be something more than a cheap follow-on from 'Aliens' It has a lot of great ideas, but ultimately their execution is less than perfect. Six out of ten. A good end to the trilogy.