Criminally underrated.

Rating: 9/10 (31 January 2015)

'Alien 3' suffers if it suffers from anything from being in the shadow of 'Aliens'. It is a vastly different picture and I say all the power to it. 'Alien 3' matches the thematic feel of the original film far more effectively than 'Aliens' does. Instead of following Cameron's blueprint for the material we go back to the bleak horror of the original. 'Aliens' was a fun popcorn masterpiece with horrific elements but 'Alien' was a horror film and so is 'Alien 3'. Instead of a 'Return of the Jedi' end to the trilogy we get a last act of a grim Shakespearean tragedy. This is bold and far more original than anything else we might have seen. It is a natural end point to Ripley and her demonic parasites.
'Alien 3' is a Fincher film through and through. It looks and feels like the 'Seven' era Fincher. This is high praise considering how many legends exist about this film being taken from him. It features the classic Fincher themes about hopelessness and obsession. This Ripley is in that mold. Visually the picture also has Fincher's eye. The film has a beautiful bleakness to it. We see that same emphasis on decay that we see in the streets of 'Seven' or 'Zodiac'. Aside from that iconography It's a wonderful looking Sci-Fi picture. It captures perfectly that space opera feel that the original 'Alien' or 'Star Wars' did. In fact in rewatching the picture it only cemented my belief that Fincher was the best choice to visit that franchise. It's a futuristic world but it's an unglamorous depressing rotting futuristic world that the characters are unimpressed and just live in. That's what made the worlds in 'Star Wars' and 'Alien' feel so real. They had been worked in.
If I have a complaint it's that the characters aside from the main three are generic. One thing 'Alien' and 'Aliens' did extraordinarily well was create fleshed out characters who didn't feel like just pieces waiting to be dispatched. In this regard 'Alien 3' is a mere monster movie. It's a shame too because so much of the background and world is really well imagined and realized. The story about the prisoners and their fanatical religion is interesting and serves as a great starting off point to build character arches off of. The characters that are explored with any depth are very interesting and poignant. Clemens who is masterfully played by Charles Dance is as good as any character appearing in the previous two films. More work on the script was necessary. Perhaps cutting the cast down a bit might have worked well.
I think my greatest praise for the film is how it does deal with the character of Ripley and her tragic and yet poetic end. Ripley needs to be alone without Hicks or Newt for this film to work. She truly is at her most heroic here and her supreme sacrifice at the end proves it. It is so satisfying seeing her destroy herself and the Alien queen inside her in the face of the greedy company who has caused so much misery over the course of the series. It is the only way to be rid of the real parasites.