Superb, grim drama that beat all the odds.

Rating: 10/10 (24 December 2012)

I love this film. I really, really love this film.
Panned as it was for having no guns or violence by the people who probably think Michael Bay is an Oscar winning director, the film shines in so many respects.
Alien was a superb and original horror film, Aliens was a great all out action film with a brilliant atmosphere. Alien3 was passed off as a poor mans rip off of the first film when it is in fact an amazing character film.
The cast is tremendous featuring an almost entirely vintage British lineup and the delivery of every line is so convincing with Charles Dance taking the biscuit for his amazing Thespien qualities. The sets are grim, industrial and have a character of their own that really makes for a great atmosphere. I've read about the 'Wooden planet' idea and various other script notions that came before but I truly think this was the perfect setting.
I'm gushing but even I think that the film is far from perfect. The omission of Newt and Hicks was in very poor taste and served no purpose other than to make the struggle of the events and Aliens utterly pointless. While this does add to the nihilistic feel to the film and coupled with the fact that Carrie Henn would have been a great deal older when this film went into production when it was meant to be set weeks after Aliens it still seemed like a bad move. Also the killing off of such interesting characters like Clemens and Andrews seemed quite a strange decision especially as none of the other characters, good as they were got as much development.
All this aside, the biggest kudos has to go to director David Fincher, who through oceans of studio interference and bungling stood what he possibly could of his ground and delivered an amazingly put together and thoroughly enjoyably dark film. I hear many folk slating Fincher for destroying the series but if these morons had bothered to do any research they would know that it was the constant changes and interfering from studio suits, who knew nothing of film making, that really made it suffer. The story is made even better by the Assembly cut which really filled in a lot of the gaps, but even the theatrical release is a fantastic accomplishment in the face of the crap that he had to put up with.
If you don't like this then you really don't have the intelligence to.