Inferior, but enjoyable

Rating: 6/10 (22 January 2005)

The "Making of" documentary begins with these words by David Fincher..."I think that they knew that I had given my blood and my every milliliter of my sweat trying to make it work, but I guess that I just wasn't clever enough to come up with something that would really blow everybody away and be something completely different."
"It was just set up wrong to begin with. It was a very sort of bad period for us, in this film, because we were fighting a losing battle all the time."
That, in a nutshell, sums up the general consensus surrounding this movie.
Alcatraz in space, just did not work. It still offers some good moments, but this was clearly NOT the sequel James Cameron had intended. With Aliens (Alien 2), he clearly set it up for Ripley, Newt, and Hicks to return to Earth as a family. It should have been Ripley and Hicks from then on out. Instead, Ripley is alone among a penal space colony, Newt died in transit (a victim of a chestburster during the trip), and Hicks's life support had mysteriously given out.
This script was quite bad. Jon Landau, Executive Producer of this project is quoted as having said, "I always felt that Alien 3 was a movie that initially, as a studio, we set out to make a Release Date and not a movie. I think along the way that changed, but that really set us back." They were more concerned with the release date than the story, and unfortunately, that is a glaring reality when viewing this installment behind the first two.
All that having been said, however, Sigourney Weaver is no less realistically believable; no less professionally perfect in her performance than she was in both Alien and Aliens. In fact, the performances were lovely all around. It was the plot which was lacking. The story was not beneficial to the line, in any way. Especially in that they killed off Ripley, and thereby terminated their own franchise. This was sad, indeed, as the one to follow also lacked in depth and vision, but was a definite rise above this third attempt.
It's the movie I wanted to love, but just couldn't.
As such, it rates a 6.2/10 from...
the Fiend :.