Great action and suspense, but poor script and acting

Rating: 6/10 (22 December 2004)

To see this film, its likely you've seen the previous 2 films, which were very good. Horror fans wouldn't be disappointed with this film, but the acting and script lets it down. Alien 3 has never lived up to its previous films to some people, including me. The director of Alien 3 - David Fincher, unfortunately tries to make the film more modern than its predecessors. This is were the film goes wrong. We are used to the excellent directing delivered to us in the previous films, but the only good piece of directing in this film are the camera angles, which shows us the aliens nicely and some great 'running away' scenes which we see when the characters try to trap an alien, cleverly in one small area. The best of use of cameras in this film is the quiet scene in which Ripley finds the mother alien sneaking up on her.
The film is set on a distant planet that holds some insane characters in a prison. Ripley, in her escape pod from the previous film, lands onto the planet. Here, we meet many strange and different characters of all types. We have our typical American psychopath who keeps on shouting out "F**k you man!". Its a shame really, the first film done well without guys like this. I'm not saying actors shouldn't swear - what do you expect with an alien hunting you down, but I get the impression they are saying it for the hell of it. Then we get some dumb geezers who apparently haven't seen a woman in years - believable, but if you class Ripley as a woman by the end of this film, you belong with these guys! Our other characters thankfully try to act and remain calm...most of the time.
After an alien is swallowed by the riggers dog, he (spoiler) gets frisky and gives birth to an alien, but because the dog ate the egg, we see an alien mutated into a dog. A clever idea from our novice director, and a realistic scene when we see the dogs stomach explode. The other special effects aren't too bad either. We see CGI (computer generated images) of aliens, running around the corridors that maybe perhaps could have done with more effort.
It is Ripleys change in personality that sets this film away from the previous 2. Its harsh , but (spoiler) when Ripley gets her hair shaved off to avoid lice, she does become very mannish. It is the truth, but its shows the development in Ripleys character. She is no longer the woman with plenty of femininity, but now a more woman who's ready to kick some ass.
The good thing about this film is the amount of action we are treated to! There's plenty of 'run away' scenes and aliens, and the realism is great - most scenes use puppets of aliens, and the use of the early CGI is minimal, so don't worry about that too much.
If your looking for a realistic action film, than try Alien 3. it has its flaws - bad script, lack of outer space, and constant arguments between the characters that gets tedious. But this film has been designed for action, and director David Fincher does a good job of that, and the puppet realism as well. But avoid this if you don't like lots of blood, aliens, or the flaws listed above.
Overall, an experience.