Good Movies come in Thirds.

Rating: 8/10 (12 March 2006)

I first saw Alien³ while in Berlin, as I travelled across Europe on my motorbike during the summer of '92. The newer version that has come to light several years later is a marked improvement, not to say that the 1992 Cinema release was a poorer effort, it was not, far from it.
With a fine and prestige's English cast that refines and catapults this third instalment to a higher level of quality, such as Charles Dance, the late Brian Glover, Pete Postlethwaite and Paul McGann, Danny Webb and Philip Davis. We have also the charismatic Charles S. Dutton to represent the American market here too, as well as David Fincher, whose work as directing, besides Alien³ , on movies as, Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi, but on the miniature and optical effects unit here only, and Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, and Panic Room.
This fresher version extends the plight and solitude of the twenty or so remaining low life prisoners that have remained behind on their prison planet that is Fiorina "Fury" 161, the Work Correctional Facility, and with Maximum Security status. There is no need for weapons, the CCTV has not worked in years, there is no supply of ice cream too, and with only one cargo visit per several months or so, the hope of escape and rescue is far and impossible.
The characters here are given actual personalities, strong enough to work to a high degree of connection and understanding, and are hard not to sympathise with, toward the end of each, and eventual, demise. For they give off the sense of empathy and their esprit de corps is at least commendable, even for a collection of riffraff lifers.
The acting is intelligent, clean, and sharp, at times humorous too, the love interest between Ripley and Clemens is a fine subplot. Alien³ concentrates more on the development of the human issue of the family of destitute's, rather than an out and out gore fest. There is blood and horror, but not on the level of this horror sci-fi genre has become synonymous.
With its realistic language and sensitive overtones, Alien³ is a fine addition to the Alien saga if there ever was one.
End of Transmission.