A more honest sequel than Aliens

Rating: Null/10 (21 October 1999)

Alien3 felt a whole lot more like Alien to me than did Aliens. Aliens is Ripley as Rambo. What made the first movie so good was that the humans outnumbered the enemy but were helpless to stop it. Alien3 returns to that feel. Aliens was an action film while Alien and Alien3 are both really more SciFi/Horror films. Set on a convict world with no weapons and little external contact Alien3 has a good mix of feeling "in the future" but somehow very primitive. David Fincher does dark very well. The Alien has changed a bit physically but it still has the same bad attitude and need for food. The loss of Newt and Hicks didn't bother me at all the way others seem disturbed by it. Dead folks are just part and parcel of this series. The best part of the entire movie is the final "chase" scene through a maze or corridors beneath the iron works. The chase rapidly becomes disorienting and even more so when you shift to alien-cam and the aliens runs up onto the ceiling with you. The effect is outstanding all the more so because it throws you into the sense of the poor convicts trying to figure out which corridor they are in and where the alien is in relation to them. It is a wonderful effect and one that Fincher carries elements of with him into the chase scene in Se7en.