Alien 3 is a 1992 sci fi horror directed by David Fincher and starring Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Charles S Dutton and a rubber prop that looks like Lance Henriksen
A lot of people hate Alien 3. It unapologetically kills off three of Aliens’ beloved characters, and the original theatrical cut of the film is sometimes a confusing, choppy mess. But I love it. For me, I liked Alien 3’s complete reversal of James Cameron’s sugar coated happy ending to Aliens. I like that the series returned to the bleak hopelessness of the original film. And I also liked the confusion of the big chase-through-tunnels set piece in the theatrical cut. Until I saw the ‘assembly cut’, I mistakenly thought the choppy editing was on purpose, and I applauded the film for being deliberately incoherent.
I’d go as far as to say that Alien 3 is actually a better film than Aliens. Don’t get me wrong, Aliens is a superb action film and it holds up far better than most action films of that decade. To watch it now, you’d never know it was made over 20 years ago. But Alien 3 is a tighter film (when compared to the Aliens director’s cut) and is far more atmospheric. It’s dark, it’s threatening and it’s brilliantly bleak.
Also, Alien 3 was my first exposure to David Fincher, and I’ve been a devoted fan ever since. His stylistic touches and directorial flourishes, though in their infancy (he was 26 when he directed this) are unmistakable here.
What I also love about this third instalment is that is deepens the role of the mysterious, shadowy Weyland Yutani ‘Company’. The Company seems to be this all-seeing, omnipresent threat which I thought was a great compliment to the immediacy of the threat of the alien itself. You figured that even if our heroes managed to destroy the xenomorph, the Company was still out there, endlessly pursuing this biological weapon for their nefarious, capitalist purposes.
Another unfair criticism of Alien 3 is that the characters are one-dimensional. This seems to be simply because they all have shaved heads. When I hear this complaint I always wonder if the reviewer watched the same film as me. Yes, there are some peripheral characters that are ‘cannon fodder’ and are fairly unremarkable, but the main characters are all played by fairly accomplished British actors who are far from cookie cutter and are all memorable. There’s Charles Dance as the doctor. He has precious few scenes but he steals them all, especially his monologue about how he came to be the doctor on an isolated prison planet. His joking-but-serious “at least I got off the morphine” is a great line and he delivers it superbly.
And Paul McGann is brilliant as the unhinged prisoner driven mad after witnessing the alien killing one of the other prisoners. I was glad to see his role fleshed out in the ‘assembly cut’. In the theatrical cut he mysteriously disappears –he’s confined to the prison infirmary, and then we never see him again. In the ‘assembly cut’ what happened to his character is finally explained and as such explains a massive chunk of the film that was utterly baffling in the theatrical cut.
Charles S Dutton is also brilliant as the de facto leader of the prisoners. I love his hand-to-hand fight with the alien – he lasts longer than any other character in the entire series and to make it all the more enjoyable, he gives the alien shit as he’s doing so “is that all you got?” He has the film’s best dialogue. His speech to the other prisoners is a highlight, as is his back and forth with Ripley where he explains why he won’t indulge her wish to take the easy way out and have him kill her. It’s a nice call back to her first meeting with him where he tells her he is an inmate because he was a “murderer of women”.
And Sigourney Weaver is of course great in her third outing as Ripley. I particularly liked her quiet reaction to Charles Dance explaining that they found “a mark…a burn” at the scene of one of the prisoners having an unfortunate ‘accident’. And I love the scene where she is going over the ‘black box’ of sorts (the remains of the android, Bishop) and discovers that an alien crash landed with her. It’s a hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck moment, and it’s brilliant.
And the film also has some nicely poetic moments. The cremation scene in particular is brilliant. Charles S Dutton’s dialogue is superb, Elliot Goldenthal’s score is hauntingly emotive, and the way it’s juxtaposed with the alien birth is just fantastic.
Just getting back to the ‘assembly cut’ and the Company – I also like the race-against-time element that is introduced in the extended version when we find the prisoners actually did manage to trap the alien in the toxic waste silo by burning it out of the tunnels. The Company man informs them via message that they have the alien trapped and requests permission to destroy it. We then get the wonderfully predictable ‘No’ and the reply message that the Company is on its way. I love how this feeds into the other added scenes of the insane Paul McGann setting the alien free. On the one hand, we loathe him because now the alien is on the loose again after they fought so hard to trap it. But we also applaud his actions because we know it would have fallen into the Company’s hands and the Company considers the prisoners expendable anyway.
And the ending is another thing critics of the film moan about. Not only do they do away with Hicks, Newt and Bishop, they go and kill off Ripley as well! The nerve! Even when I first saw this film at 13, I thought it was a brilliantly ballsy move and a fantastic full-circle ending to the series. I loved Ripley’s ultimate sacrifice. I loved that there was a small part of me watching the film thinking ‘she has an alien inside her…how they hell is she going to get out of this one?’ and I loved that the film didn’t deus-ex-machina or find some other cop out miracle medical procedure to remove the alien. I loved her cynical look when the Company rep tells her all they want to do is remove the alien from her and take her home. It’s a brilliant piece of acting. She knows he is full of shit but there’s a tiny shred of hope in her eyes.
My only gripe is not actually with this film. It’s simply that the franchise didn’t end here. This is two hours well spent.
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