Alien³

Aliens, a great action movie, cheapened the original by replacing one hyper-intelligent, indestructible monster with an army of gormless critters. This third entry has only one creature, but unfortunately it's just as gormless. When Ripley (Weaver) crash-lands on a prison planet full of hard-nut slap-heads, they haven't seen a woman in years. Discovering that there's an alien loose, Ripley asks the warden to break out the guns, and can't believe it when she is told there aren't any. Nor can we. Good acting has salvaged many a poor script in the past, but not here. Dance is slaughtered in the first act, as is the regulation bastard warden (Glover), leaving only Sigourney, impressive as ever, and a motley cast of extras. Though wasteful of th...

Don't feck with The Baldies!

Special Edition.

I love it, I really do. OK! So it's basically a monster on the loose piece, but the setting at a sci-fi prison colony - complete with nutty religious shards - makes for a thrillingly atmospheric ride. Of course if this was merely a stand alone film, where there was no Alien and Aliens previously, I feel sure the special edition cut would be thought of differently.

A roll call of Brit thesps line up for some tension filled entertainment as director David Fincher and cinematographer Alex Thomson provide a look that is both beautiful and scary. The metallic nightmare of chambers and cold concrete fused together for some hellish stalk and paranoia. Industrial Punk? Steam Punk? Cyber Punk? ...

Superior in every department to the basic shoot em up, Aliens,

Alien 3 returns the franchise to its artistic horror roots established by Ridley Scott. No more Disney kids, happy endings and machine gun wielding irritants.

This movie is a beautifully bleak experience and is the true sequel to Alien (1979). Performances are excellent all round - especially Charles Dance as prison doctor, Clemens, and, of course, Sigourney Weaver - who gives us her best performance as the downtrodden Ripley.

A masterwork by David Fincher that restores the horror and dignity to the series. Thank goodness for Alien 3!

• Charles Dance

The end of an epic trilogy

Mild spoilers:

Everything has been said about this movie already, but let's find out why the rating of it (on a different, shabbier website) is so low. Here are some points of a popular reviewer, who has almost 100 percent support of their readers.

1. At some points the audience is bored stiff and at other moments they are confused by the outlandish action sequences.

Outlandish action? Was it too alien? And sorry you were bored by the exceptional cinematography, underlined by a pace that was just right not to rush things, which brings me the second point.

2. ...a disjointed mess that feels forced and rushed.

Story seemed linear to me. And which one is it, boring or rushed?

3. The directi...

Did Gordon Ramsay direct this? F-bombs galore!

Sigourney Weaver remains a joy to watch, while Charles S. Dutton and Charles Dance are strong additions; Dutton especially. As for other positives, I enjoyed the score and the fact that we (seemed to) get way more of the alien itself; which is what I wanted from the first two, personally.

The plot isn't the greatest but is very watchable, the ending is pretty good. One criticism I do have is the dialogue, as alluded to at the top of my review. I've nothing against the use of swear words whatsoever, but man does this film overuse the f-word; it feels like every other word across the conclusion.

Overall, it's a definite drop down from the two very good predecessors, though I still got th...

This third instalment in the franchise reverts more to the original, more claustrophobic environment as "Ripley" (Sigourney Weaver) crash lands onto a penal colony run by "Andrews" (Brian Glover) where the inmates are all pretty unsavoury characters. It's not long after she arrives that one of them gets minced by an huge ventilation fan - but, was he? Her suspicions are further confirmed when one of the guard dogs has a very bad attack of gastroenteritis! With the help of the ex-convict doctor "Clemens" (Charles Dance), she has to galvanise her sceptical fellow humans to prepare for the impending onslaught whilst also dealing with some rather horrific personal information too! This has much more of a British feel to it, and that doesn't alw...

At the moment it has 60+% and that makes me happy. I spent a lot of time defending Alien 3 as a stellar addition to the franchise. And, honestly, I think a lot of the hate on it is because of the fate of those that we grew to know and love from Aliens.

The Dog concept was cool. It gave the alien a great new spin. And David Fincher...seriously, his style fits the franchise so well it's unbelievable. It is bleak and stylistic and it fits great into the world of Alien's future...in a Mad Max kind of way.

It was the Alien movie that the 90s deserved, unlike Resurrection.

You have a film that is darker than Aliens and a lot more horror. It fits more into the mold of Alien, with a darker theme. It's a nice departure from the over-the-top...

A film that starts badly cannot end well. Even so, the film has values worth highlighting.

There is no doubt that the first two films in the Alien franchise are classics in their own right and figure in a certain pantheon of the best horror and sci-fi films ever made. These are films where everything went very well, and everything came together in such a way as to make great works of cinema. This film cannot match them, and the reason for this has to do with its origins. As we say in Portugal, what is born crooked never straightens out.

In fact, this film was born and grew under the sign of chaos and confusion, with almost constant discussions between the studio, the producers, director David Fincher and the team responsible for t...