Alien 3 (1992) review

13. Alien 3 (1992)

Directed by: David Fincher

Produced by: Gordon Carroll, David Giler, Walter Hill

Screenplay by: David Giler, Walter Hill, Larry Ferguson

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Lance Henriksen

One fundamental difference between “Aliens” and “Alien 3”—or “Alien3” if you want to judge by the title screen—was that while the former was a movie the production company Brandywine Productions really wanted to make, the latter was one Fox wanted to make much more. And it ends up being a product that has all the signs of studio interference; it went through several screenwriters, had a director change during preproduction, and began filming without a finished script. Now that doesn’t automatically mean a film is doomed to fail; “Aliens” had a lot of production problems like crew changes and budget issues, but the movie itself was outstanding. “Alien 3,” on the other hand, plays out more like a bland, ill-conceived melodrama with poor special effects, lame dialogue and weak stakes. Despite being directed by David Fincher of all people in his feature debut, it betrays his crafty expertise and settles as a dull and even somewhat insulting monster flick.

The story begins sometime after the last one ended, with Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), android Bishop (Lance Henriksen), Marine Corporal Hicks (Michael Biehn) and the young girl Newt escaping the alien queen on the Sulaco spaceship. But while they’re in hypersleep, an egg hatches aboard the ship, releasing a Xenomorph facehugger; I have no idea how that egg could’ve got there considering what happened with the queen, but whatever. It causes a fire that forces the ship to launch its passengers in an escape pod, which crash-lands on Fiorina “Fury” 161, a foundry and maximum-security correctional facility. Ripley awakens and discovers that she’s the sole survivor, if you don’t count Bishop, who’s damaged beyond repair anyway. With prison warden Andrews (Brian Glover) and Doctor Clemens (Charles Dance) fearing for Ripley’s safety from the all-male inmates, they arrange for her rescue. But unbeknownst to them, the facehugger latches onto an inmate’s dog, and a full-grown Xenomorph soon emerges from him. With no weapons, Ripley must try and lead this ragtag bunch to stop this threat before help arrives; but is there more to this new alien than meets the eye?

Okay, so let’s start with what everybody loves to complain about when they describe this movie; before the seven-minute mark, Newt and Hicks die practically off-screen. Do you remember how frustrating it was in “Halloween 5” when the loveable older sister Rachel only lasted 20 minutes before getting stabbed through the chest? This makes her death look Hitchcockian by comparison. I’ve said before that surviving horror movie characters don’t often make it through follow-ups, but for such strong bonds that these ones formed, it comes across as cheap and gratuitous for the film to just toss them aside so quickly and frivolously. They deserve more dignity than that, not necessarily by surviving the whole movie, but at least giving Ripley more of a sense of purpose than just being an outcast leading the fight against the alien for the third time. So it’s just an overly unpleasant start, first with the death, then with Ripley insisting Newt be cut open to make sure she’s not carrying an alien embryo, and then with her and Hicks’s bodies being cremated, all the while the dog is the next one to go; so for the viewers this movie hasn’t already lost, now the dog-lovers are probably gone too.

If you’re actually willing to stick around through that extremely nihilistic first act, you might notice that at the very least, this movie establishes a unique visual identity. The color scheme and some of the camerawork—particularly when the alien first closes in on Ripley’s face—really help sell the tone of a dreary prison drama; but I think Fincher’s inexperience is also on display here. Well-versed in directing music videos, he really overuses the low-angle shots and cross dissolves, and the tension is just not there. The suspense in each of the first two movies was heart-pounding, with so much build-up in the characters not knowing where the alien was. But in so many situations, we see the action from the alien’s point-of-view, and the cinematography is way too slow and smooth to make it feel nearly as frantic as it should. Sometimes the film actually cuts away before a chase scene even happens, and some of the musical tracks are really out of place, like having rock music during an attempted gang-rape.

Oh, and there’s also just the fact that we don’t give a shit about any of these characters except Ripley. Wait, I lied; Clemens is a somewhat decently developed character, but he gets axed pretty early, so most of her scenes are with Dillon (Charles S. Dutton), the de facto leader among the prisoners. Conceptually, he should be interesting, but his motivations are really inconsistent, and he just ends up more pushy and sanctimonious than anything. Bottom line, we’re not the least bit perturbed when most of these characters die, because we don’t feel like we know them at all, other than they’ve supposedly taken an oath of celibacy and are in a prison that runs on the honor system, which is why there are no weapons in this place. Take your pick on which of these concepts is the stupidest; you’re right either way. Then the third act tries to make the movie about exploitation, with Ripley giving a speech on being looked down on, and it just comes across as phony; this film has a serious identity crisis.

It’s already inherently a letdown when we go from a movie with a whole colony of aliens back to just one, and even taking the pacing problems out of the equation, this Xenomorph doesn’t look good except for the close-ups. Anything that’s shot from a distance, the effect does not age well; apparently, it was a combination of special effects supervisor Tom Woodruff Jr. in a suit and a rod puppet filmed against a blue screen. I appreciate the effort at giving the alien a different, animal-like series of movements, but it looks just as awkward as the Zuul dog in “Ghostbusters.” It’s a shame, because most of the effects work is actually pretty solid; the scene where Ripley momentarily revives Bishop has a terrific use of animatronics, even though all Bishop does is tell Ripley what we as viewers already know about the ship crash. So much of what happens just doesn’t feel important—even what happens with Ripley is super predictable—because any emotional involvement or scary survival element is lost. What I’m pretty sure people remember about this film is that Ripley shaves her head, and dies at the end, and even the latter looks too much like “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” which came out the year before.

“Alien 3” is a film I wanted to like because it’s clearly trying for a new story and tone, and makes some bold choices, but it’s so standard, clunky and logistically questionable, and the choices don’t even pay off; I don’t think it’s the worst “Alien” film, but it’s more disappointing because it had the most to live up to, and was decimated by a production schedule in flux. A reported $7 million were spent on sets that never got used because the script kept changing, entire scenes were filmed, then scrapped the next day, and even after Fincher tried to cobble this mess together in editing, Fox rejected it and wanted a shorter run time with extensive re-shoots. Fincher has since disowned the film, claiming nobody hates it more than him; in fact, the chaotic circumstances nearly stunted his career, were it not for the support of Sigourney Weaver and producer Arnold Kopelson, who disregarded Fox and hired him to direct “Se7en” three years later, which was a terrific success. This, however, was a domestic box office failure; despite occasional scenes of solid aesthetics and honestly decent performances, it’s a colossal step down from Ridley Scott and James Cameron’s brilliance, which has never been achieved again with this franchise.

My rating: 4/10