"I don't want ripples in the water."

Rating: 7/10 (7 February 2015)

If you watch the first three Alien films in succession you'll probably be disappointed with this entry in the franchise. The sequels do appear to be derivative of the original with a lot of mileage wrung out of the concepts delivered in the first movie. But if you watch "Alien 3" as a stand alone flick I don't think it's too bad. Unless you're totally invested in the Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) character because she comes to a bad end here. The chest burster theme is revisited just as Ripley makes the ultimate sacrifice, reminiscent of one of the Terminator sequels actually. I guess after a while it gets more and more difficult to come up with creative endings. As for the monster itself, it's not as big and scary as one might expect going in, and there's only one of them to terrorize the prison colony of Weyland-Yutani. The business with Bishop's (Lance Henricksen) synthetic humanoid was a cool way to keep his character part of the continuity and the twist with Clemens (Charles Dance) getting snuffed by the Alien after he'd built a rapport with Ripley was somewhat unexpected. Of course we'll never see Ripley again (yeah, right), but over all, as a quick sci-fi/horror diversion, this one is worth a look if you've seen the first two.