David Fincher's first film proved his worth to the world as a director. If only the writers and producers had known what to do with the footage they were given.
Alien 3 is filled with some extraordinary imagery and creates yet another intriguing and different setting in the already enormous world of the Alien movies. There are some fascinating ideas that the script and the characters attempt to explore in as much as they can given the limitations of the idiot plot they're involved in. It's sort of like intelligent and and interesting people were placed in a situation that they should be able to get out of but don't because the puppet-master pulling their strings is a moron and got scared by a silly CGI effect instead of an actual creature.
Once more the Alien movies feature an impressive cast of actors who, at times, almost appear to be winking at the camera saying, "we know how bad this film is going to be, but we're gonna give it all we can anyway." Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Brian Glover, Paul McGann, and Pete Postlethwaite are all featured in varying capacities and all deliver the goods as we can expect of them. Then the script orders their characters to die in those obnoxiously sudden and lamely depressing ways at the most convenient of moments and almost all for no discernible reason aside from what could be called a temporary lapse in sanity and/or logic and/or humanity. This is especially true of Dutton's character, who, up until his death, is probably one of the most interesting creations of the film and the lead proponent of one of the movie's primary focuses and themes- religion. Though admittedly, in retrospect, the manner in which faith is discussed and presented in Alien 3 pales in comparison to how it is handled in Prometheus, at least on a consistently thematic level. Charles Dance also gives a good performance and his character is built up into what surely promises to be a worthy cohort of Ripley's damaged persona. Then he's killed. Really for no good reason other than the movie hadn't featured many deaths yet and the writers/producers felt it was high time to get to the slaughtering and bloodshed.
Alien 3 is notorious for its constant script problems and rewrites and random director choices. The producers were never satisfied and had no idea at the outset of what they wanted to accomplish with the film. This, to a degree, makes sense, as Alien and Aliens had completely different styles and tones yet were both equally smashing successes at the box office the producers felt it necessary to somehow combine elements from both movies to make the third a mesh. This was the result. And in every aspect other than the technical components the film is clearly wanting. The Assembly Cut available on DVD is marginally better and has some slight improvements upon the Theatrical Cut but ultimately the film is simply a mess of half-baked ideas.
A new form of the xenomorph is shown in Alien 3. Concept work for it looked fine, I'm sure. But a mixture of shoddily done CGI work and awkward mixing of puppets and stunts makes the creature in the film seem like several dozen different ones. The look is never consistent and never convincing.
Elliot Goldenthal's score is naturally something of a work of an eccentric genius as always. The mixture of a faint heavenly choir with a clanging metallic orchestra offset the tone of the film in an interesting way that complements virtually every scene in a surprisingly consistent manner given the disjointed nature of the movie's story and tones.
Newt and Hicks die at the beginning right before Ripley's shuttle crashes into the prison planet. Okay. Weaver as always grieves the way she should. And there are brief scenes of her and Clemens examining Newt's body at Ripley's insistence because she believes an Alien could have survived. There are rumors of graphic footage of Newt's autopsy that Fincher wanted to include but were deemed way too intense for the average audience member. I'm not sure what it would've added. But being the creep I am I'd like to see it. Back to my main point though- plot development wise I guess it makes sense to kill Hicks and Newt. But there's something so strangely off-putting and not-believable about their incredibly sudden and convenient deaths. I mean thus far in terms of the movies themselves Scott and Cameron attempted to keep more or less a sense of solid realism in regards to story and tone. All of a sudden two pretty well established main players in the last film are just kind of gone and not really referred to ever again by anyone. Just doesn't ring true.
Also question- how in the hell did Ripley get pregnant? How in the hell did an Alien find its way aboard the ship? It just kind of happens. And Ripley just kind of goes with it for a while, has some angst-talk with Dutton about it, and decides to off herself in the end. Okay. But why? Not why does she kill herself, but why is this necessary to...anything in the whole Alien series? To Ripley? This is sort of the central problem with Alien 3. And why Prometheus makes more sense as a separated story from the rest of the Alien films. Alien and Aliens, as I said before, are essentially based in a more or less realistic world. Alien is a slasher film in space with Ripley becoming the Last Girl who must defend herself against the xenomorph and survive his attacks. Fine. Aliens is an action movie with Ripley as the hero this time. And Alien 3...? I don't know what her point is. She just kind of does stuff and it usually involves the alien. Big whoop. She's a protagonist and the writers and director fill the world and the story around her with plenty of symbols and ideas but none of them are consistent or actually meaningful. Yes Ripley reacts to the bad things that happen to her, but in this film there's no context being provided. At least in Aliens it made a sort of sense that she'd be concerned about the people on LV-246 and that she'd be able to provide information about the Aliens. And more so there's the revelation of her kid issues, having lost a daughter, she finds a kindred child in Newt and becomes clearly protective over her. Alien 3 has Ripley becoming surprisingly helpless at times, no thanks to the again oh so convenient lack of weapons on the prison planet. And then Ripley sacrifices herself. It's probably the best thing about the film. Mainly because of the performance by Weaver again, but also the direction, and the music. It feels like at long last something significant has happened. What it means I'm at a loss for. There are emotions in the ending. They're there. Somewhere.
The look of the prison planet is fantastic. Bully for David Fincher. But again. What else is there of interest in this particular setting? The characters are...sinister. The place itself is...sinister. Everything's very sinister. But so what? Example again- the Nostromo is populated with regular working class people the average audience can relate to. The terraforming station on LV-246 set up in Aliens is populated with families and kids- people the audience can sympathize with. Fury 161? A bunch of really really unpleasant prisoners who have raped and killed and pillaged and all that. And again the oh so convenient "they hate women now because they tempt them" angle via the religion stuff? Isn't that a bit all ass-backwards and vaguely sexist for an Alien movie?
The religion aspect too is picked up and dropped at the movie's convenience. Dutton gets all fire and brimstone for a while. Ripley is vaguely disparaging and then they're sort of friends. Then they spew some random religious stuff again and then it's dropped right before Dutton goes down with the alien. It doesn't go anywhere or add anything. Except for ominous trailer sound bites.
And then, naturally, there's an endless, endless chase scene. It's dizzying. Not fun. Not scary. Just kind of existing. A bunch of people die because Dutton gives a speech. Ripley comes up with her usual brilliant plant. But really its rather silly compared to say Alien or Aliens. They trap it behind some heavy doors and walls. They cut it off. Then they pour some hot liquid stuff on it a lot. It dies. Um, what were we so scared of? How did these creatures defeat us twice before? And therein lies the ultimate fate of the remaining Alien movies from here on out. The creatures become just kind of menacing monsters who jump out a lot and kill a bunch of people and are easily defeated by run of the mill human beings with nothing special about them. Why is that interesting? Why is that original? Why am I still watching?
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