Not as good as the others (as if you need telling)

Rating: 6/10 (23 May 2003)

After the brilliant Alien, and the maybe even better Aliens, what was the obvious progression? That's right, Alien Cubed. That's something of an optimistic title though, as this is certainly not Alien to the power of three. Actually, the only real problem with Alien3 is that everyone involved in it, with the exception of David Fincher, Sigourney Weaver, H.R.Giger, and maybe Charles Dance seems to be completely useless. The acting is (with the exception of the above) uniformly awful, truly dreadful. The clunking dialogue is not helpful to their cause.
Fincher does a decent job with what he has to work with and his past in music videos doesn't make the film too flashy and disorientating. Particularly impressive is the scene with the alien's point of view while it runs along the ceiling. But the whole film is let down by the disappointing visuals. Where the first two films had darkness and dinginess, or just sheer scale to impress you with, Alien3 just has a rust coloured prison planet that looks like something from Dune. Only worse. This is the downfall of the film - if the visuals had been better, the films other many bad points could probably have been ignored.