Tremendously Underrated

Rating: Null/10 (1 October 2002)

When anyone sets out to make a sequel, it seems that most people make up their minds to hate it before they even sit down to view it for the first time. I think that Aliens (James Cameron's sequel to Alien) dodged this bullet because it was so over-the-top good and different (and because expectations for it weren't that high). So, all the pre-decided venom to hate a sequel was reserved for David Fincher's Alien3 and most people never even gave it a chance.
Now, granted, overall the film is not as ground-breaking as the original or as tautly fun as the second, but it's still a great film. First, it gave us a tasty sample of the kinds of visuals that we've now come to expect from David Fincher, probably the only director who can rival the Scott brothers (Ridley and Tony) for dark beauty. The flash images during the title sequence alone scared the hell out of me.
Second, the performances are excellent. I would argue that Weaver should have been nominated for an Oscar for this film rather than for Aliens. Running around and shouting like a macho action hero is great, as she did in 2, but here in 3 she displays a much broader range of emotions with depth, subtley, and real sadness. Charles Dance is also amazing.
And last, the guts and originality of the story are impressive, given what had come before in 2 and 3. The easy road would have been to make 3 even bigger: more aliens, coming back to earth, some stupid path like that. Instead, they chose to scale it back down again, really focusing this time on Ripley as an individual (more than in any of the other films). Isolating her and her relationship with the Alien(s) is a courageous and dramatically effective move, especially considering the unpredictability of how she becomes so isolated - just when she's making connections with people in her new environment, something happens to cut her off again.
The storyline has been lambasted by many because it's not very warm and fuzzy. Excuse me, we're talking about one of the finest sci-fi horror franchises in contemporary cinema history, yes? Warm and fuzzy isn't what I go to these movies for. Even more than in 2, Alien 3 brings the sadness back to horror. It's not just stupid, empty thrills with characters you don't care anything about (paging Wes Craven) - these are real people who have to face real danger and make heroic decisions. And, in fact, the heroism of Ripley's character in this film is what makes it the perfect ending to what should have been a trilogy (all apologies to the great Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who directed Alien 4).
SPOILER (If you haven't seen this film and plan to, you probably shouldn't read any further):
I was truly moved when Ripley finds herself carrying a Queen - it's the culmination of the worst fear she's carried since the beginning of the series and her solution is the perfect counterpoint to the `crew being expendable' sentiment voiced by the Company in the first film.
Rather than being told that it's okay if they die by someone else, here we have the main character deciding to die because she's internalized the battle with the Alien(s) (no pun intended) - no matter what the Company says or what they offer her, she takes on the final responsibility to make sure the Alien(s) are wiped out - that's true heroism and it's every bit as moving as Ripley's `decision to go back in' from 2. I think that people just didn't warm to it because Weaver, with her shaved head, isn't as cuddly as Newt from 2, but it makes me wonder why these people walked into the theatre playing Alien3 in the first place.