Movie was a bit too painful to watch. It felt like an alien ripping out of my chest!

Rating: 6/10 (16 November 2013)

Movie felt a bit too nihilistic and depressing to watch. Still, it wasn't the worst movie. I'll give that to 1997's Alien Resurrection. Alien 3 was a very hard movie to get through, as it didn't had the same scares of the first horror movie, Ridley Scott's 1979's Alien or the adventure thrill of the sequel 'Aliens' directed by James Cameron. Directed by David Fincher, the movie continues after the events of the sequel. Aliens left off on a hopeful note of no more bad dreams until Alien 3 came along and injected its own nightmare. Everything that people love about Aliens was rip away from the opening shots of Alien 3 when the escape pod from the Colonial Marine spaceship Sulaco crash-lands on a prison-run refinery planet, killing everyone aboard except Lieutenant Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver). By doing this, Alien 3 takes away every character, Cameron help established about the series and cause a sour-taste for the fans of Aliens, in the first few minutes, by killing off three beloved side-characters in the first three minutes. Certain fans, in particular, regarded the decision to kill off the characters as a slap in the face. I thought the director did show some courage by killing off the characters from the second movie, but the way, they die wasn't going make the fans happy to have their heroes die so brutality, without any attempt of establishing them in the third movie. Unknown to the prison population, an Alien organism was also aboard the escape pod, which then begins a killing spree on the planet as Ripley must once again is forced to stop it. Alien 3 had a difficult production, with various screenwriters and directors getting involved in the project, with multiply ideas. Some of these ideas for the third movie were pretty outlandish, ranging from aliens infecting technology, aliens coming back to Earth, Ripley going to the mother planet of the aliens, and others. The production start filming before a screenplay was even finish. The director had to re-shoot and rewrite the script simultaneously while fitting in sets that had already been built, so filming was already plagued. It didn't help when incessant creative interference from studio executives also came into play. Fincher has since disowned the film, citing the aforementioned reasons. I have to give David Fincher, some praise for even getting this movie out there. Since this movie, David Fincher has gone to bigger and better success. Just to note, the film has two versions of the film. One is the Assembly Cut, which was released in 2003 and the other is the original version from 1992. There is a few different, between the two, as Assembly Cut tends to be the better version as it establish more of the themes of Alien 3 and gives more screen time for the prison characters. One of the biggest different between the two, was the animal that the alien morph from. People tend to complain when living animals, especially dogs are killed, so in the assembly cut, the movie has the alien come from already dead, Ox. In my opinion, it doesn't make much sense. The alien in the movie tend to be fast, and move like a predator because of the traits it got from its host. An ox wouldn't have these types of traits. A lot of people complain how fake the CGI alien looks like, but it's not CGI, at all. It was a scale puppet operated by sticks on a blue screen. It was so poorly lighted and rot scoped that looks like cheap early CGI. Another complain about the movie is the lack of action. After watching an action full sequel, this movie seems dull as the prisoners lack guns or proper guards. Most of the prisoners are pretty unlikeable and unsympathetic as they were just brutal ex-criminals who found religion. There is misandry's tone of the movie. The movie is filled with male characters who exhibit only the worst male characteristics. None of the great male virtues are nowhere to be shown. It didn't help that the prisoners were all bald, and talk with a cockney accent. None of them really stand out. Even Ripley seems completely out of character. Two movies, two subtle love interests, no sexual relationship and then in this one she meets a dude for five minutes and wants to get down. So awful. The movie seem to have some weird sexual metaphor. A lot of theorist think the movie is really about AIDS, with aliens representing AIDS. Other thinks it is about religionists dogma as one of the early story draft had Ripley come across a religious planet that has rejected technology. I like how the film was trying to get back to the horror concept of the first movie, but I miss the suspense and claustrophobic feeling. The movie ruin the suspense, by showing us that there was alien from the beginning of the film, but they try to add a surprise to Ripley's character, but it doesn't make any sense since there was only one alien. Without spoiling it, too much, there was no way that Ripley could had impregnated. It just not logically. Even the Christ-figure ending was a bit hokey. I can do without all the religionists overtones as it was already too dogma depressing for me. Overall: the pacing is slow, the editing is very choppy, the visuals are murky, and the story is weak. One early draft of the script focused almost entirely the Aliens characters returning home would serve better than this film, only to find out a rival faction of planet has use the Aliens as a bio-weapon to conquer Earth would be better. While, the latter was used somewhat in Aliens: Colonial Marines video game. I still, haven't saw a good version of that plot. I would pay to see that movie.