Tag Line : The Bitch is Back.
The third installment in
the alien saga is by far the worst to date. Directed by David
Fincher, the film apparently came about from a mixture of
different idea's that didn't really work out when they finally
put them together on film.
Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley and the film also stars British actors Charles Dance, Paul McGann (who would later go on to play "Dr. Who") and the late Brian Glover (probably best remembered in the US, for his role in "American Werewolf in London"), to name but a few.
Following on from ALIENS, Ripley, Hicks, Newt and the android Bishop are still in hypersleep on board the "Sulaco" as it returns to earth. Unfortunately a facehugger had somehow stowed away on board, and trys to break into one of the chambers. It injurs itself in the process, acid blood flies everywhere and starts an electrical fire. The ship explodes moments later (blimey, next time I'll take the train).
Ripley and co are saved by the ships computer, which transfers their chambers into an escape pod before the explosion, but their problems are far from over. The pod crashes down on a the planet Fiorina 163, or "Fury" as its called, which is a prison colony, and only Ripley survives the impact. To make matters worse, something else survives the crash too (no prizes for guessing what), and latches onto the pet dog of one of the inmates.
Everything seems fine at first, as Ripley is taken to the prison and awaits to be picked up by the company. In the meantime though, the alien inside the pet dog hatches out in the usual manner (poor thing), and the scene is set for yet another onslaught. Several of the inmates fall prey to the creature before they realise what is going on, but strangely though, the creature doesn't attack Ripley when it has the chance.
We later find out this is due to the fact she's been impregnated by an alien queen embryo, which begs the question of "just how many of those damn things got on board, and how?".
The rest of the film consists of prisoners being chased around the complex by the creature, as they run around trying to lure it into a trap (boooooring !). One of many mistakes made was to include the idea of the characters having no weapons, and so having to try and outwit the creature. This was actually Sigourney Weaver's idea as she thought it would make the film more interesting (wrong!) .
The worst part of the film though, was having Hicks, Newt and Bishop, killed off during the intro, as they were very popular with the audience in the last film. Lance Henrickson does make a guest appearance at the end of the film as one of the company reps. But this wasn't good enough to save this dire plot.
This film was supposed to be more like the original, a sci-fi/horror, but instead it's just plain awful. The plot stinks, there's no real action, no real suspence, or fear (inspite of what the cinema advert claimed) and there's not enough shots of Sigourney in her underwear. I would wholeheartedly recommend that you give this film a miss, except you really need to see it to understand parts of Alien 4.
Overall marks : 4/10.
Other Information. A different poster from the one above, used for the films promotion, showed a curled up alien queen embryo, with the alternate tag line "This time it's hiding in the most terrifying place of all" One other problem with the film, which actually started as an interesting idea, had the creature moving in a different way, as it had developed some of the characteristics of its host (the dog).This idea had only been previously touched on in the comic book series. However, to do this the vast majority of shots where filmed using "stop motion" animation and tacky computer graphics, which didn't look quite right on screen. This was actually David Fincher's first picture as a major director, and unfortunately it shows. He did however, go on to have greater success with the film "SEVEN". The initial budget for Alien 3 was $35,000,000 but quickly mounted to $65,000,000 due to the amount of "mucking about" with the hiring of staff and the constant re-writing and changing of the script. Click "Here" to see the list of production problems that resulted in this film being a complete mess! |
Extra Info. |
| Video
Clips. Requires RealPlayer. Theatrical trailer. (654KB) US theatrical trailer. (647KB) |
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| Buy
Online.
Buy the video at Blackstar. Buy the DVD at Blackstar. Buy the Alien DVD box set at BlackStar. Notes on affiliate sites. |
Other Films in the series.
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