Alien 3 (1992) Horror Movie Review
Written By: CM
Film Information
Director: David Fincher
Producers: Gordon Carroll, David Giler, Walter Hill
Writers: David Giler, Walter Hill, Larry Ferguson
Cast:
Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley
Charles S. Dutton as Leonard Dillon
Charles Dance as Jon
Brian Glover as Harold Andrews
Ralph Brown as Francis Aaron
Paul McGann as Walter Golic
Danny Webb as Robert Morse
Rating = 2.5/5 Graves
***May contain spoilers***
Synopsis
After successfully escaping with Newt in the spaceship Sulaco, Ripley wakes up in another colony and finds out that Newt didn’t survive the crash landing. This time, she was rescued by an all-male penal colony of inmates with antisocial behavior. Just when she thought she has escaped the aliens after a grueling mission, she finds herself leading another one as they face an alien on the loose with little to no weapons on board.
Gore Factor
Out of the first three films in the Alien franchise, Alien 3 is perhaps the most stylish of them all when it comes to cinematography and special effects. Fincher puts a lot more gore into the series with exploding human bits and a lot more blood spluttering. It also has a lot of haunting sceneries–including the notable ending that left everyone in disbelief.
The Grave Review
David Fincher, a decade after the release of Alien 3 (1992), announced that he hates his own film and that he is disowning it. Watching this film with his perspective in mind will definitely make you a lot more critical, especially with the fact that Fincher is a critically-acclaimed director and the visionary behind cult classic films Fight Club and Gone Girl. With that being said, Alien 3 is not that bad.
The lack of action is definitely the first thing one will notice in this film. Alien and its sequel are known and praised for their highly effective action-packed stories that will keep you at the edge of your seat. Alien 3 (1992), on the other hand, was bordering on boring. If you’ve watched other Fincher movies and enjoyed them, this lack of action will become more forgivable. The director is not very keen on flashy horror tricks and enjoys more twisted, even psychological terrors. Being that this film is his first directorial debut, it is quite evident how he evolved into the director he is now, except this installation ended up being a mere training ground as it ended up half-baked and disappointing.
Starting by killing off Newt and Bishop after all that hard work in the movie was definitely underwhelming and overall a bad choice. In order to be a good franchise, the sequences must appear carefully thought out and just essential to each other. Given that the first three films were directed by three different people, it was quite confusing as to why they had to kill off characters so swiftly and nonchalantly after they carefully built their stories in the previous film.
There was an overall underwhelming feeling that comes with Alien 3. Given the colony’s circumstances with the lack of weapons, there could’ve been a lot of potential for some action. Instead, Fincher chose to end it with water sprinklers.
Despite this, Alien 3 (1992) redeems itself with the special effects and cinematography that even earned Fincher an Oscar nomination. The ending where Ripley dives off and gets eaten by the fire was definitely haunting and just solidified her character even more. In the third installation, Ripley’s character development was at its peak. It showed exactly what kind of heroine she truly was and shaped her iconic character to be an inspiration until now.
Perhaps Alien 3 (1992) wouldn’t be so heavily criticized if it didn’t follow the first two heavily action-based films. As a stand-alone, this film definitely has potential to be good, but in conjunction with the two films, it was just simply not consistent and does not attract the same audience.
Because of the above reasons, Grave Reviews gives Alien 3 (1992) two and a half graves out of five graves.
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