It's a stinker....but it had to happen sometime

Rating: 3/10 (20 April 2009)

Yes.....Alien 3 was an embarrassment, especially after all the pop-culture and movie influence that both "Alien" and "Aliens" put on. "Alien" was perhaps the greatest horror ever made, even surpassing "The Exorcist" and "Halloween". "Aliens" is a sure contender for being the greatest action/sci-fi movie ever filmed. And just knowing these two facts is why this movie fails, because there was so much riding on this and it turned out to be disappointing. And they also seem to be going back to the first film with the idea of the lone warrior alien and they don't do anything new except make the alien a quadrupedal. But of course, it's understandable because what else could they make of the Alien series? A comedy? But the entire film doesn't present itself very well and that's why it fails.
After the end "Aliens", Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop are still in hypersleep until a face-hugger on their ship somehow causes a fire (which makes no sense) and then cracks through Ripley's cryo-tube and impregnates her. Then the spaceship crash-lands on a an all-male prison planet with Ripley as the only survivor. But the face-hugger (which can somehow infect twice) infects a dog, and then all hell breaks loose in the prison.
After they couldn't get either Ridley Scott or James Cameron to come back, they gave the job to film auteur David Fincher while he was still a rookie, and his lack of experience is painfully apparent in here. He just doesn't generate a lot of suspense or tension and we start to ponder our reason for watching this movie in the first place.
The supporting characters are just a bunch of useless scum that people call prisoners and there isn't a single explanation given as to why we're supposed to care about them, especially Dillon who is perhaps one of the most repulsive characters I've ever seen put on a film. He basically puts down Ripley because of her gender and even unemotionally states to her "I am a murderer and a rapist of women". And you're gonna feel totally magnificent when he ends up dying in vain while fighting the alien at the end. And it also doesn't reveal anything new about the Ellen Ripley character and she's sorta flat in here. But Sigourney Weaver doesn't do that bad of a job at playing the character that she plays best.
And also as for the alien itself, its really dumb and poorly done. The idea of it being modeled after a dog isn't remotely interesting nor is it threatening. And also the scene when the chest-burster pops out of the dog was really disturbing to watch and also unnecessary. If it's horror that you're trying to make, you have to make scenes that are scary but at the same time you still want to watch it, and the dog's death scene did neither of that. Honestly, I hope that same dog bit the director and the writers in the @$$'s really hard. And also it was basically poorly done because it was the early 1990's and it was obviously a puppet that they were using and it was very stilted and totally fake. Even the aliens from the first two movies were more convincing and terrifying and those two were made YEARS before this came out.
Some stuff I rather liked were the good camera work when the alien was on the ceiling chasing the prisoners, but this still didn't contribute to the suspense and it was more of an eye-candy thing for me. And also the tragedy shown about Ripley that she constantly suffers all because of the aliens. But other than that, just pass this one....