Alien³

After the phenomenal success of Cameron's Aliens, it was clear that we would be getting a third installment, and it was only a matter of time before it was made. However, as it sometimes happens, the third Alien sequel was a victim of confusion in the production studio, the story was passed from hand to hand, rejected scripts filled entire drawers, and many directors were approached. For the film to be made in the end, Sigourney Weaver had to step in as a co-producer, as the funds for running her theater activities were running out. But this only brought more people, who all had their say, so the film certainly didn't come easily. The choice of director eventually fell on David Fincher - not so much because he was considered a great talent, but rather because he was appropriately cheap as a starting director. Money was saved on the set design, and it can be seen in the film despite all of Fincher's efforts. Alien 3 is not a blockbuster where a huge budget is visible, but rather an intimate film that has to make up for what is missing in set design with cleverness. And surprisingly, it succeeds, because Fincher is truly skilled. He replaced bombastic special effects with clever editing and sophisticated camera shots. The film also certainly has atmosphere, but it is fundamentally different from what Cameron or Scott served their viewers. When Fincher lacks money, he uses a pessimistic gloom and play of shadows. It is not an action war drama like Cameron's films, but Fincher can perfectly evoke a gloomy mood, tension, and a horror premonition of impending doom. I hesitated between four and five stars, but the positive ultimately prevailed. The film is slightly weaker than the previous two, but the difference is minimal considering the circumstances under which the film was made. Its release in the United States was a big flop, fans couldn't get over the deaths of little Newt and Ripley at the end of the film, and they were expecting entertainment of a different kind after the previous action-packed chaos. The third installment of Alien is primarily a case of clever filmmaking, good performances, and a horror atmosphere of which even much more experienced directors would not be ashamed. Overall impression: 90%. (12/09/2007)

I'm putting this film a little below Scott's original opus. Fincher's a talent, there's no denying that. Unfortunately, the third installment of the series was reportedly treated by the studio as unwanted, so it was a problem to fit it into the budget at all (which is visible in places). Yet, after Cameron's spectacularly militant shootout, this psychological play is literally a revelation in a completely repulsive space crime environment for the worst offenders. The creeping terror is trickier than ever, guns are scarce, and Ripley has to fight on two fronts -- a hungry intruder and creepy "roommates". Maybe the third film is something else entirely than what was expected, but in hindsight, I like it more than Cameron's contribution to the Alien family. (01/27/2004)

As an audio-visually powerful, toned-down, existential drama about seeking forgiveness and God in a God-forsaken place, this movie is excellent, but half way through it’s like out of nowhere Fincher remembers (or more likely the producers forced him to remember) that he is filming the new Alien and not a sci-fi adaptation of something by Dostoyevsky. So, all of a sudden he forgets about everything that came before and then launches into an absolutely regular, uninventive kill-fest that loses all of the atmosphere built up in the first half. And this goes for both the regular version and the director’s cut, which is the better of the two, but just a better version of the same and not “something completely different" as many reviewers suggest. (01/13/2010)

The first one was (and still is) a formidable claustrophobic machine for mining nerve-wracking atmosphere and suspense; the second one is a militant feast in honour of the most terrifying monsters in modern cinematic history that doesn't let us get away from aliens in the right sense of the word. The third one wants to take something from each by using a single bloodthirsty monster and involving a group of seemingly twisted characters, setting the action in the vast, depressing labyrinth of a prison where life as a symbol no longer has any intrinsic value. The cast is once again perfect and the characters are quite diverse, and it’s not possible to guess who will end up as a bloody spot on the wall and with whom the script has longer-term plans. And as for Fincher's debut, it's a well-known fact that the studio tried to repeatedly rape and control his work, which is unfortunately noticeable: the depressive barrage is at times on a similar level to its predecessors, but partly due to the very choice and nature of the setting, where even a brain-dead would get depressed; and on the other hand, it has a rather fading tendency: the performance of the intruder, like in the first one, is based on suggestiveness, but fails to generate intense flamboyance during its advances (also due to his strange digital form), and mostly doesn't even act as a highlight of the film – that would be the skilful subjective camera work, the effective soundtrack and the already mentioned actors, led by the excellent Weaver, who is more dominant from part to part. It's worth watching, it doesn't offend or fail, but it still makes me sad to think that there could have been a pure Fincher version that would have shown his narrative genius and fulfilled the potential of a great subject into something grander and more distinctive. (03/22/2017)

The Alien franchise is remarkable for the fact that every director has made his mark on his episode. Scott's imagination and Cameron's belligerence have been replaced by the heavy blanket of depression master David Fincher. Welcome to the bleak world of ex-convicts from which there is no escape. The third episode is not worse than the previous two, it’s just different. (04/12/2003)