Weak Plot Makes the Movie Silly

Rating: 1/10 (6 November 2011)

While neither Alien or Aliens, the commercially successful predecessors, stand up to scrutiny, they had enough to give audiences all the requirements of an action, science fiction monster movie. Alien 3 begins with the question: How did the Alien eggs get on the ship? By not answering, the producers expect the audience to shrug along with Ripley and turn the brain off.
Somehow two eggs get onto the ship from Aliens. The organism laying parasites spew acid that causes an electrical fire. Even though these ships put the crews to sleep for journeys that can last weeks and months, what has to be an extremely sophisticated computer system cannot: 1) Detect alien organisms running amok on the ship; 2) cannot put out the fire at the first hint; 3) cannot isolate the fire (or the organisms) so that it stays in the hold area where it had to have started; 4) can only eject the sleeping crew (instead of waking them to deal with the fire); 5) the life boats are just hunks of metal that do not have auto pilot capabilities.\
You are also expected to believe that the egg denizens must be free ranging because the eggs only open when a likely subject is near. It's almost as if the producers, writers, director were unaware there were two movies before this one.
Ripley is the only one to survive the crash onto a planet that is a prison colony for extra chromosome criminals. Granted, she's been through a lot, but she immediately adopts a "I'm going to do what I want, when I want so f*** you" attitude and disobeys the warden's order to stay in sick bay. She is then surprised when no one does whatever she tells them to do.
From start to finish, Alien 3 is a weak, poorly constructed rip off of the earlier two movies. It was designed as a payday and nothing more. There is absolutely no need to watch this movie to understand Alien 4: Resurrection (better than this one, but not by much) so it should just be avoided. Alien 3 isn't even bad enough to laugh at while watching.