A harshly treated, honest sequel.

Rating: 9/10 (18 February 2011)

Alien's success led to three sequels; Aliens, Alien3 and Alien Resurrection. Of course, the only one that ever came close to moving out from under the original's shadow was Cameron's Aliens, the most hate still seems to remain directed at Alien3 followed closely by Alien Resurrection. James Cameron's sequel is truly one of the best sequels ever made to a film, it upped the ante with an entire colony of the aliens as opposed to just one, a queen alien, a child, soldiers, guns and explosions. James Cameron was able to make a sequel that drew comparison with the original but ultimately devalued the aliens' terrifying image by including hundreds and making them far easier to kill by including weapons.
I see Fincher's Alien 3 as an attempt to reconnect with something that was lost in "Aliens." I love watching each film because there's a watermark left from each director's style: Alien has Ridley Scott's pacing, tension and flawless direction. Aliens had James Cameron's funny satire of American soldiers and it's own brand of humor, before it was diluted into something far less enjoyable with Avatar. It also has his a happy (yet not artificially sweet) ending that makes the film-goer leave the cinema satisfied.
Alien 3 has Fincher's bleak outlook. The opening sequence is still one of the best opening sequences that I've seen, it captures the mood of the whole film. It is a dark, allegorical tale for an adult taste about redemption in the sh*thole of the universe. A group of convicts are able to group together valiantly to destroy the most horrifying creature in existence. Gone is the optimism of Aliens, enter the nihilism of David Fincher. The deaths of Newt, Bishop and Hicks were necessary to Fincher's vision by removing the optimism of Cameron's sequel. The alien itself has also changed, to a dog-like sprinter.
Fincher's film was plagued by rewrites, development hell and critical failure. This is the prelude to Fight Club and Se7en, it was an exercise for Fincher to distinguish his own style. The film retains little of the other films, while remaining more true to the bleak outlook of the original than Aliens. It's a polarizing film that will divide fans of the first two entirely but is a must-see. But it's rarely seen for what it truly is. It also has the best motivational line for a certainty-of-death situation: "You're all gonna die. The only question is how you check out. Do you want it on your feet? Or on your f*ckin' knees... begging? I ain't much for begging! Nobody ever gave me nothing!"