Vastly underrated - a great film in its own right

Rating: 9/10 (19 January 2008)

I've never really understood why people don't like Alien³, because I think it's a great film - easily as good as anything else David Fincher has turned his hand to. I'll happily concede that the alternative version in the Alien Quadrilogy boxset is superior to the original theatrical cut, so if you're going to watch it, watch that version. It just makes more sense, plot-wise.
The first 3 films are all very different films and I suspect that Alien³ is unpopular because people expected a sequel to Aliens - more colonial marines, more wisecracking, more guns. More Newt and Hicks. Alien³ doesn't deliver this. There are no supermen, fewer gags, and no guns at all. Hicks and Newt are shown as corpses in the opening titles. I wouldn't have objected to a bit more Hicks, I'd had my fill of whiny Newt by the end of the scene in the Aliens Directors cut where she screams her head off in her parent's tank. So, hooray for killing off Newt! I like the look of Alien³ - it's dark and gloomy, just as any decent sci-fi/horror crossover film should be. Ripley's companions on this round are for the most part, criminals. It has a decent cast of established British actors in it, who all do a good job of making you care about them as characters - despite the fact they're all rapists and murderers.
So, there are no guns, just grubby prisoners in the middle of nowhere. There's also just the one alien, which works well as it restores some of the element of suspense which was so prominent in Alien and almost completely absent in Aliens. Ripley gets impregnated by a super-facehugger and is carrying an alien queen. This is a natural progression in the series, but a good one at that, as we finally get some idea of how it must feel to have an alien growing inside you, from someone who knows it will eventually rip its way out through her chest. From the moment we discover this, we know this film can't have a happy ending (and it doesn't - it led to Alien:Resurrection, which really is a turkey). This also ties up the theme of Ripley and motherhood - we know her daughter died of old age while she was floating out in space. Her 'adopted' daughter Newt dies when they crash land on Fury 161. How sad that her only 'child' turns out to be an alien queen. I thought it was a nice touch that for the first time we are shown that the Alien isn't just a brainless killing machine - it won't kill Ripley because it smells that she has an alien inside her.
If I knock off a star, it's because I found the final chase sequences with the doors and the lead works a bit too long. Other than that, I think it's a good film - just not a cheery no-brainer popcorn flick.