Movie Review: Alien3 (1992)

Alien3 (1992) directed by David Fincher

Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is on another emergency evacuation vehicle after the conclusion of Aliens. This vehicle crash lands on a former prison planet. The prison was shut down but some of the prisoners who "got religion" decided to stay. They are still serving their sentences but only are supervised by a warden and a doctor, though the doctor has a suspicious past. In order for it to be an Alien movie, a creature stowed away on the vehicle and is now wandering around the prison, killing off people one by one as in the first film.

The movie is very derivative of the first two films. It tries to be a tense horror like the first film but is way below the high water mark the first film achieved. It tries to have a lot of action like the second film but the prison has no weapons and the humans are little more than cannon fodder for the alien. The humans have no way to fight other than a ridiculous Rube Goldberg scheme at the end. There's the usual evil corporate baddies who want the alien as a bio-weapon, a theme that has worn thin by this film. The introduction of a religious element could have been an interesting development but all the filmmakers show is fundamentalism and hypocrisy. Even those are sorely underdeveloped. Some of the visual effects are good but a lot of CG composite shots look like they were made a long time ago. The movie really has nothing to recommend it unless you're an Alien completest or a David Fincher (of Se7en, Fight Club, and The Social Network fame) completest.

Not recommended.