Rating: 
Summary: One of the worst movies of all time
Review: I've seen "Alien 3" only once, when it was first released, and I absolutely hated it. Reading the other reviews here on this movie, a majority of reviewers also seem to hate the movie. There are a lot of reasons given as to why this is such a terrible movie and I agree with every one of them. Here's a few more thoughts on this subject:I loved "Aliens". It had all of the usual sweeping James Cameron themes - the self-sacrificing Heroic Male; a female who grows during the course of the movie from a helpless observer to a heroine; a nascent love story that develops between these two characters; and a complex relationship between a parent figure and a child; all set in the backdrop of a terrifyingly fast paced action adventure story. "Aliens 3" starts right off the bat to prove that it is NOT "Aliens" by annihilating all five of these Cameron themes. Like many fans of "Aliens", I'd grown quite fond of Newt and Hicks, and so it was just the downer of all time to see them killed off right at the beginning of "Alien 3". All through "Alien 3", I kept wondering - WHY? Killing off Newt and Hicks was so unnecessary, and so atypical of the Hollywood sequel industry. Michael Biehn was not exactly in a position to turn down a reprise of his role, since he never became a big movie star. Carrie Henn never made another movie, but she would have been too old for the role anyway, and could have been replaced with another child actress. Surely the movie moguls and bean counters would know from experience that the surest formula for a successful sequel would be to reprise the same familiar characters from the previous big hit. And then there was the overall misandrist tone of the movie - this was a movie that could only have been written by a man-hater. The movie is filled with male characters who exhibit only the worst male characteristics - extreme violence, cruelty, stupidity, greed, cowardice, and weird rituals. Male virtues - compassion, loyalty, honor, duty, and courage under fire, are no where in sight. Hicks gets killed off-screen, coolly and clinically, and the affection and budding romance with Ripley that was in "Aliens" is ignored as if it never was. Newt's role is stretched out a bit further as a corpse in an autopsy that Ripley insists on watching. Remember how Ripley screamed and searched with such desperation when Newt slipped from her grasp into that ventilator shaft in "Aliens"? Where is this same emotion in "Alien 3" when Ripley discovers that both Newt and Hicks are dead? What a waste of energy for Ripley to have saved Newt in "Aliens". Does she even care anymore? Ripley does get to become the undisputed star of this movie, complete with a hokey Christ-figure death scene at the end. Finally, as the credits roll at the end of the movie, it all becomes clear. Sigourney Weaver has a production credit! That meant she had creative control of this movie! And I remember the revelation that flashed into my mind at the time. The movie studio had to cajole her into reprising the role of Ripley. There were signs from her reactions in certain talk shows that she strongly disliked Michael Biehn in real life, for whatever reason. So, I have always blamed Sigourney Weaver for killing off Hicks and Newt, and for creating this awful movie. Whenever I watch "Aliens", there is a certain pain and sadness in seeing Hicks and Newt come to life, to be saved by this actress who would betray them in the next movie. I know of some hardcore "Aliens" fans who have never seen "Alien 3", having heard in advance just how bad the movie was. I wish I was one of those lucky people.
Rating: 
Summary: A real departure
Review: I cannot express how RIGHT ON director David Fincher was on this one. The mood and atmosphere are so dark,tense and decidedly "cyberpunk"that they practically upstage the actors (who are mostly unknowns and perfectly cast). The art direction is incredible and this is one of the few "sci-fi" films I've seen that actualy manages to portray a believable future.The fact that there are no weapons only serves to heighten the drama. Being a fan of "city of lost children", I expected the fourth and most recent installment to be on par with if not exceed Fincher's. Instead,it simply revisited all the settings and technology we'd become familiar with in the previous films. Alien 3 is a real departure and deserves much applause. The ending is a real shocker as well, and is exactly what i didn't expect from Hollywood...of course, they found a way to keep the franchise alive...
Rating: 
Summary: The dark one...
Review: After seeing Alien Resurrection I decided that this was my favorite of the series. While the first in the series used silence and darkness and a lack of action for the first hour or so to create tension strong enough to make your blood boil, the second used intense action and an overwhelming turn of odds and confidence for the characters to entertain, and when the third came out, I'm glad it was something new. No guns, one alien, a clautrophobic setting with a distrubingly warm tone to it, and a perfect setup for the fourth...Ripley falling, clutching the chest burster, suddenly waking up in the beginning of the fourth movie to realize A3 was just a dream...too bad the fourth went with cloning.
Rating:
Summary: For die-hard Alien fans only
Review: ...When I saw the previews for this in Dec 1991, I was VERYhappy to see a new Alien movie coming out. When I went to a drive in to see it, I had bad sound, so I figured I should give it another chance. HOW WRONG I WAS. I went to a theater and saw it again. It just plain sucks. There are NO weapons. None. Oh wait... fire. Oh yeah. That rocks. Very little action. The most action I can remember seeing is when the dog alien is chasing the prisoners around. Yay. You only see the alien very few times throughout the movie. I have seen worse than this, but this is pretty bad... Resurrection is just ok, and the gore is to the extreme, so for that I don't really think it should be condemned. Still, I have few good things to say about this one. If you are a die-hard Aliens fan, and must see/own them all, then by all means, get this one. If your not, your money is better spent elsewhere. I can live with the fact that there is only one alien (same as in the first movie), and that there is very little action. But NO weapons? What's up with that? I heard a rumor that before Sigourney started shooting this, she said she would only do it if there were no weapons. True or not, I don't know. I could go on for hours, but I think I've said my part. This is definitely the least watched. Bad directing, horrible waste of a script, bad acting, no decent plot, and NO WEAPONS (did I mention that?). Pros: There is an alien in it. Cons: Far too numerous to list. If you disagree, then watch the movie. END
Rating:
Summary: Oh My God....
Review: What was the director of this movie thinking! There is only one word that i can describe this movie with. CRAP Plain and simple this movie sucks. Most of the great charactors from Aliens are killed of in the first 30 seconds of the movie. Ok well some people might be able to handle that. Then the film is bogged down by bad effects, stupid charactors, and dialog that wanted to make me puke. If that wern't bad enough the same face hugger manages to implant Ripley and a dog before dying off. I thought the face huggers only layed one egg before dying. Hmmmmmm... If you want to see some really great sci-fi movies rent Alien and Aliens. Even Alien Ressurection is better than this sloppy excuse for a movie. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!
Rating:
Summary: Underrated: 7/10
Review: The third of the Alien saga is also perhaps the most critically mauled of the series. Predictably, almost inevitably, first-time director David Fincher fails to live up to the first two films; but Alien 3 showcases the strikingly dark and moody visual style of its creator perfectly: dimly lit corridors criss-cross a claustrophobic prison facility where there are no weapons, and from which there is no escape. True, the script is largely second-rate; true too, the acting is rarely better than adequate, save the ever-reliable Weaver. Also, this being a David Fincher(better known for Se7en and Fight Club)film, any notion of an upbeat ending goes straight out of the window quite early on(the ending, in particular, was savaged by fans- perhaps with some justification). However Alien 3 would have made an acceptable conclusion to the Alien- and more importantly the Ripley- saga, had it not been for Jeunet and his Alien: Resurrection, which left the series once again in limbo after a truly corny("I'm a stranger here myself...") ending.
Rating: 
Summary: That Damn Alien Keeps Following Ripley
Review: A pretty good sequel of the sequel but now its starting to get a little repetitive. I love the Alien set and this one is ok i can sit through this one no problem the reason i bought it was to complete the set. Follows more of Alien then Aliens but can't live up to Alien 1 & 2's standards. Graphics are great you get to see more off the alien and more of it's destruction but making it take place in a prison was a little far out but ow well still good. Only buy it if you want to complete the set.
Rating:
Summary: Not really worth it
Review: This movie is OK. It isn't as good as the second film and definetly isn't as good as the first film. PROS: Nice atmosphere and suspense, pretty scary, great ending CONS: Bad script, bad alien effects, too profane, some bland acting BOTTOM LINE: It's OK. The third best in the series. A few slightly redeeming qualities that keep it from being the worst in the series.
Rating:
Summary: Why? Why? Why? Why?
Review: I have a problem with any film that sets up as its backdrop a universe where life is cheap and said universe is ruled by corporations. This is quite obvious in the Aliens environment where it is painfully clear that people mean nothing in light of corporate profits. In Alien and Aliens the Wayland Yutani corporation ignored risk to life and limb so that it could recover the alien species for their bio-weapons division. With that in mind take a look at Alien 3, which has prison worlds. If life is so cheap in this universe, why would anyone bother with the expense of running a prison planet where there is no profit to be made? Alien 3 is a pretty lame film overall, and basically a shallow reconstruction of the first film by placing the protagonists in a more helpless position, such as being on a starship without weapons or trapped on a prison planet without weapons, and faced with the lurking alien menace. It opens aboard the Space Battleshup Sulaco where, somehow, another alien has managed to secret itself on board and damages the hypersleep capsules so that they are ejected to crash land on the prison world, killing Hicks, Newt and destroying the android Bishop in the crash leaving Ripley as the only survivor yet again. Oh, bravo, guys; kill some of the best characters introduced in the series thus far. Oh, I forgot to mention that _somehow_ Ripley is impregnated and now carries not just a regular old alien, but one that will eventually become a queen. The film does present some interesting features about the creatures' biology, such as they tend to mimic features of the creatures they impregnate. In this case a German Shepherd plays host and so the resultant alien has decidedly canine features. However, a lot of this has already been postulated by Dark Horse comics which capitalized on the franchise well before this movie came out, and Aliens director James Cameron also commented on such things in subsequent interviews after the release of Aliens in 1986. What was most galling to me, however, was the fact that William Gibson had been slated to write the Alien 3 screenplay, but was dropped by Fox after he had written the a first draft. Having since read his draft, I can't understand why. I would have figured that Fox would have been hot to give Gibson's script a chance giving his star was rising in 1992. Lastly we come to David Fincher the director whose only claim to fame thus far had been music videos. Fincher suffers from the same problems that Michael Bay (D. Armageddon) suffers from in that he shoots his movies like they were 3 minute rock music videos, meaning he has liberal use of people walking in slow motion and montage sequences as though he is trying to encapsulate scenes so that they can stand alone. Whatever. The end result as it completely fails to build suspense to little more than the shape lurking behind the curtain. But done with cool colored lighting and slow music. In the theater I could only breathe a sigh of relief when, at the end, the chest burster erupts from Ripley's chest just as she falls into the pool of molten metal. Relieved because I had assumed that Fox wouldn't continue the franchise and leaving it dead at #3. I was wrong, of course, but at least 'Resurrection' was an apology for their previous blunder. Makes me glad I have a lot of the Dark Horse comics, titles like 'Tribes' and subsequent Ripley/Hicks/Newt team ups take the series in a much better direction. This film stinks on ice.
Rating: 
Summary: It had potential. . .but. . .
Review: Probably the most frustrating thing about this movie was the fact that it had so much potential. It had such a terrific setup from the previous film. There were so many great paths they could have taken the story at the conclusiion of "Aliens" that it is hard to figure out where they took such a bad turn with Alien 3. There are very few characters that one can sympathize with since it takes place on a prison planet filled with rapists and murderers. Sigourney Weaver tries to work with a particularly lackluster script and story. If it weren't for her sincerity and history with the creatures, the movie would have been a complete disaster. The end of the film is also disappointing, giving us a particularly depressing conclusion to the trilogy. Several years later, I was excited to see "Alien: Resurrection," but it was even more disappointing than this was. If you want the true "Alien" experience, you can't go wrong with the first two films.
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