Tried to love it but can only like it at times.

Rating: 7/10 (2 June 2006)

I've seen Alien 3 many, many times now. The extended version too.
When it came to theaters, I was sooo waiting for it, being an alien-fan. Well, I liked it, but some things always bothered me. My urge to love this film was so huge that only now I can try to review this film clearly.
First of all, there isn't much thrilling suspense in this one. The environment is OK, and the jail complex just looks great. It's dark and it's huge - and very well done. The characters are OK, I like the British guys. Some of them are even remotely interesting. But then again, many of the interesting convicts seem to be just statists, as they run for 4 seconds and die. The film reaches a point where you're not sure that who died and who is still alive, and what's that guys name - pretty much all of the characters just lose their points.
The story, it isn't bad you know. It's OK, and the overall "feel" of the film is kinda depressing. That's OK too, though it has an effect on you. The effect is that you're feeling kinda low all the time and reacting to the depressing environment, and the alien encounters or characters' deaths have little or no impact on you.
Then again, I was always fascinated about the looks of the alien. How it's done, how it moves, and how it's just so damn cool. So the lack of suspense didn't bother me so much. In this film, alien does look great. The close-up shots, where only the upper torso of the alien is seen, are great, just great. It looks great and moves great. ....and now I'm getting to the biggest let-down. I'm not a guy who loves special effects over everything else, but the computer graphics are just UGLY. Sometimes the alien looks like a paper doll glued on a photograph. It looks so bad, and the movement is horrible. These are the scenes where the immersion totally goes away. In the directors' cut there are few scenes which would have been great, but the CG is just so bad it makes me sad. Pretty ironic...you have the best close-ups of the beast in Alien 3, and also the worst computer graphics. Wish the damn thing was done old-fashioned, like Alien or Aliens.
Then again, bad CG doesn't change the fact that I have seen this film like 20 times. And that is a lot. There is a lot to enjoy, and the film is very serious. It is a worthy addition to the Alien series, but I hoped it could've been better.
Fincher is one of my favorite directors. He was not given enough room or resources with this one, it's clear. My rating is 7 out of 10. A good movie.