to coin a phrase, "underrated"

Rating: 7/10 (20 March 2009)

Yeah I know it's starting to become as cliché to defend this movie as it is to trash it, but for what it's worth I do enjoy watching this film from time to time and it always offers something new.
Mainly the nice thing here is the atmosphere - nothing like a dark and miserable labyrinth of abandoned tunnels, foundries, and prison cells alone on a miserable inhospitable planet to really set the stage for a dystopian slaughterfest, is there? Add to that an impressive cast of unsung British character actors such as Charles Dance (GOOD MORNING BABYLON), the unspellable Pete Postlethwaite, Paul McGann, and Philip Davis (THE BOUNTY)... with the added bonus that they're all bald and dirty prisoners on a bleak prison planet. Throw in an alien to kill them all and what's not to love? Directorially, Fincher threw in a lot of good surprises along the way with lots of surprisingly well-handled action sequences with an appropriate mixture of suspense and gore. I particularly enjoyed seeing a few "squished frame" shots and some strange staging where you don't quite know what to make of what you're looking at. There's some nice ambiguity thrown into many scenes, but never to the point where things get confusing.
However, this film makes a lot of messy turns in its narrative. First off, there are just too many red herring scenes such as Newt's dissection and the bit with Ripley scouting around in the basement. They seem only to exist to pad out the running time. Secondly, it fails to really distinguish the prisoners or even solidly identify the fates of any of them during the chaotic action scenes. For instance, does anyone know what actually happens to the big guy with the meat cleaver? I've seen both versions and unfortunately they both suffer from a lot of the same problems. Overall I like the extended version as it provides a lot more insight into the life and society of the convicts, but then again the Oxen subplot is absolutely pointless.
That "pointless" word could actually apply to the movie itself, but taken for what it is and just enjoyed for a bleak outer space horror film, ALIEN 3 actually *can* be quite enjoyable.