Alien 3 was actually the first film in the series that I saw, so I had no idea who Newt and Bishop were, I enjoyed the film despite it's flaws, though I can totally understand why people hate it.

James,

Out of curiosity, have you ever seen the "assembly cut" of "Alien 3"? If you have, I was curious as to your thoughts on if any of the restored footage even remotely helped improve the film for you (Given what you've said, I doubt it. But still....). By the way, there's also no excuse as to how an alien egg magically appears in the Sulaco given the Queen was only on board for a few minutes.

In regards to the opening scene...



Thoughts?

Damn Dragonbeard....you just got served.

Saw it last night.

I would hate it, but I just can't find the passion. It is entirely unimportant, forgettable, and not a thinking person's movie. The more you think about it, the stupider it all gets.

That's a great one word description: Stupid.

My friends and I came to the conclusion that it's two different half-baked ideas that got crashed together with disastrous results. We tried to defend it to each other, gave it the old college debate/devil's advocate try, and there is no way the movie makes sense. Only when you start prying the ideas apart does it make any sense at all...

...and the sense it makes is not worth a movie.

I'd say 3-D or IMAX 3-D. The movie was filmed in 3-D and you can tell the difference. I saw it in a "regular" 3-D screening and it was impressive. I assume it would be even more stunning in IMAX. But since most of the IMAX showings are probably sold out all weekend, there's no problem seeing it in a regular 3-D theater.

Keep in mind that I rarely recommend seeing something in 3-D, so this is a testimony to how well Scott handled the medium.

So perhaps I'll check out the 3-D screening. I've been kind of iffy on it; I hate 3-D and the glasses give me a headache. Usually, if I have a choice, I'll go with the 2-D showing.

I really did not care for it. I really think Ridley Scott dropped the ball. While not a bad film it wants to talk about big ideas and then forgets to try and answer any of them once it because a Monster movie (a unscary one at that, this film lacks tension). I found it to be a frustrating experience as a whole.

I don't get the glowing review for 3D. I saw it in 3D and wished I had seen it 2D. There was just no need for it, the 3D was nothing special. I think the only movie I'll be seeing this year in 3D is The Great Gatsby and even that will be mostly out of sheer curiousity.


As for the movie itself, well sadly, it's one of those movies I liked when I first walked out but had some problems with. But the more I think about the movie, the less I like the movie. I still enjoyed the movie on a purely visceral and visual level. But from a storytelling point of view, it was definitely a disappointment. Some cool ideas/questions are questioned and then that's it. I defended the ending to Lost, saying how the characters were more important than the questions and I still do. Besides, I thought most of the important questions (not all of them, but most of them) were satisfactorily answered. The same cannot be said here however. And then we get this tacked on, cheesy cliffhanger. Same bat time, same bat channel. Ugh.

Also, while the movie does pose some intriguing questions, I have to say, there is something inherently silly about the idea that we were created by an alien species. I mean, it's kind of intriguing but also really silly. Was this thing created by a scienetologist?!!!

I also didn't give a damn about the characters. None of the deaths meant anything to me. Just a shrug. The only characters who kind of well written were Rapace and Fassbender and in Fassbender's case, I think that was more about the actor's performance than about the writing. They still could have done so much with him.

The movie does contain some intense moments. One particular scene that got me was when the two guys encounter a snake like creature that wraps around one and when they try to cut it off, it sprays acid. And certainly, the movie is a visual marvel. Not just the effects, but the movie also deserves oscar nods for art direction and cinemetography. And as a pure spectacle it works. I just wish the movie were better written. With a few more rewrites, this could have been something special. Instead, I enjoyed it on some levels, but it's also a largely disappointment.

Right now I'd give this movie 3 stars, but I may lower it to 2.5 stars. And from a 7/10 to a 6. Not sure.

I saw it in "old fashioned 2D" how old-school of me *barf*. 3D is not needed in the slightest, the scenes with DAVID in the Space Jockey chamber (sorry I don't know the actual species) were still immersive, don't let 3D surcharges trick you.

Guess I'm against the grain on this one - personally saw one trailer for this movie and avoided the 20x15min trailers/viral videos/reviews so I thoroughly enjoyed it, it has a few clunky narrative moments and a terrible score but this is one summer movie that actually tries to rise above "EXPLOSIONS CLANG CLANG". Could have done without the very last scene.

Could have been a little more Sci-Fi and asked more questions but if Ridley heads further in this direction then count me in for more. Noomi can carry this further.

(Charlize, just run slightly to the left!!)

First, I'll say what I liked about the movie, because there was stuff that I loved. Aesthetically, I could not have asked for the film to be any more pleasing. With only a few exceptions, the movie looked as great as all the promotional material led me to believe it would. I loved the set and costume design, I loved the visions of futuristic technology and all that. The David8 android is handled well, developed better than anything else, and played by motherfucking Michael Fassbender.

That said, the monster design did little-to-nothing for me most of the time and even having seen them all over the trailers, the space jockeys were disappointing.

As for the story, frankly, there was a lot of "dumb" that I would never let the average movie be excused from, and I'm not going to make an exception just because I want to like something. The treatment of the scientists is only a step away from how they are portrayed in the first Alien vs. Predator. There are these incredibly shallow and convenient explanations toward the beginning of the film, which leads me to believe that rather than scientists, these so-called experts within their fields are actually simple-minded folk.

After the disappointing explanation of the mission that reminded me of AvP, the first big neon sign that people were not thinking logically when this script was approved was the removal of the space helmets. Again, these are professionals who have travelled lightyears on an incredibly expensive spaceship in order to study the suspected origin of life on Earth, and they are doing so in the hopes of finding something that is still alive. They enter a cave and readings indicate that the conditions will allow them to breath safely. So what do they do? They take off their helmets and roam around! Seriously. When I was in the second grade we discussed the moon landing and the fear of exposure to alien germs. In Alien, Ripley, a member of a mining team, has enough sense to know about this danger. But here we are, roaming a moon suspected of sustaining life, and we act this irresponsibly so soon?

The stupidity of the scientists continues. Holloway, one of the two main scientists, is depressed after returning to the ship. He has just discovered not only organic proof of life on this moon, but collections of writings and advanced technology. Despite this, he is depressed because all life is dead, he doesn't get to speak to an alien, and will therefore never get to ask them why "they made us." First of all, the automatic assumption that they've already proven that the jockies created us (on such little evidence as they have at this point) is absurd and rushed, but what is even more absurd and rushed is his belief that 1) he knows that they are all dead, and 2) that if they are dead, then there is no way to discover why they created us (if they did). 1 is foolish because at this point they have only been on the planet for a few hours and they have only searched a small portion of one single location about 300 yards from where they happened to land their ship. Not only have they done very little investigating at this point, but the gadgets they unleashed to map out the cave are still working hard at finding tons of locations within that very cave. 2 is a riduclous assumption for myriad reasons. You do not have to speak directly to a jockey to find out why they created you. THIS IS THE ENTIRE FUCKING POINT OF ARCHAEOLOGY. You can collect evidence, including the limitless writings within the very first cave you've entered, and possibly discover information leading to an explanation for this question.

This Holloway character, one of the two top experts in the investigation, continues to act in further illogical ways from this point forward. He is like the doofus in a slasher movie, not the lead investigator in serious, adult science fiction.

Holloway is supposed to be the Darwinist, and his partner/fuckbuddy/girlfriend is supposed to be a woman of faith. The film's entire attempt at the darwinist/creationist dynamic is abysmal. Shaw's belief pretty much comes down to her saying "I choose to believe" a couple of times and cherishing the cross she wears. This dynamic was so poorly executed that they could have amalgamated those two into one well developed character instead of two poorly developed characters and it would have been far more effective.

Shaw also makes some claims about "identical DNA" which are completely absurd.

This is getting way too long, and to go any further would be to go into spoiler territory, so I guess I'll leave it at this for now. Yes, those are only a couple of examples, but I think they are enough to set the tone for what is lacking in the film, and the kind of stuff that appears over and over again. Those examples are from the first half or so of the film, and it gets much worse as it goes along.

I completely hated Alien3 upon first viewing and had ignored all subsequent franchise installments until now. The early publicity material for this had me in absolute titters and Prometheus became my most anxiously awaited film in years.

Having just returned from the cinema I'm not sure how I feel yet. I was compelled throughout but thought the film could have gone in more interesting directions than what ultimately transpired. I liked the central mystery of the space jockeys' motivations and thought that they were sufficient to hang the film on without any monster moments. It reminded me of Sunshine in how the horror elements are an unwelcome diversion from a compelling sci-fi film.

I usually agree with your reviews James, but you completely lost me on this one. I fail to see the intelligence in this film. In fact it is unquestionably one of the dumbest films I've seen in a while with characters who make one outrageously stupid decision (yes, touching the hissing, snarling alien snake is an excellent idea!) after the other and none of which are terribly relatable or sympathetic. Given my love for "Blade Runner" I had high hopes for the potential of the film's philosophical musings but all I got was wanton stupidity. Elizabeth's last line of the film in which she dismissed David for being a robot made me want to scream at the screen. I was not the only one.

This movie is awful. Not because it's slow. I enjoyed The Tree of Life. I enjoyed A Space Odyssey 2001. It's awful because it is so mindbendingly stupid at times that it shatters any and all suspension of disbelief into a thousand pieces never to be mended. This movie actually accomplished the seemingly impossible task of making me angry, which is a first in 30 years of movie-going.

There was one good scene in the entire movie and it was completely wasted. It seemd more a creation of happenstance than intent.

Loved this movie. Excellent film, and certainly the most entertaining thing I've seen since "The Avengers" last month. What really disappoints me, though, is the film's R rating. Once again, the MPAA demonstrates just how backwards it is. I can't imagine juveniles below the age of 17 being traumatized by the film's sci-fi violence and brief language. It's a great movie, but I have a feeling that this decision will almost certainly reduce a portion of the film's overall gross. I've often found that most of the high-quality films young people should be introduced to nowadays receive an R rating, and that only a handful of PG-13 movies ever fall into this category. With the exception of "The Hunger Games" and "Marvel's The Avengers", can anyone really name a recent PG-13 film that is truly impressive? Neither can I. The truth is, we instead end up with disappointments such as "Dark Shadows", "Men in Black III", and "Snow White and the Huntsman".

And yes, I have to agree with Mr. Berardinelli. "Alien 3" (and "Alien: Resurrection" for that matter) is a truly appalling piece of science fiction. But to be fair, Fincher later said that a great deal of studio involvement resulted in the creation of such a godawful film. Notice the large difference in quality between "Alien 3" and "Se7en", one of the most compelling crime thrillers ever made.

I have to agree with the other posters here where they use the word stupid to describe parts of the movie.The grand idea of the Engineers is a intriguing angle that goes nowhere and instead we get a bad haunted house movie where it seems everyone acts dumb.For a second I thought this was Ridley Scott's scifi version of Cabin in the Woods.The difference is that Joss Whedon is being knowingly dumb but I am not sure that is what Scott was doing.The point where it all fell apart for me is when one of the research team thinks he is Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter and then it seemed all the wheels just fell off.It would rate this as a fairly big disappointment.

AntonyAmmo you are unfortunately correct in all your criticisms but you left out the boring cliche of the evil free market corporation.I guess there are no Bill Gates in the future.

I came back from seeing this film and I have to agree with those who were more disappointed with it, though it was by no means a bad film. Scott just didn't follow through on some of the ideas that he started, and that could have given the film so much more weight. Some more detailed thoughts:

In my state of anger after seeing the movie earlier tonight i find that this review sums up feelings perfectly.

http://badassdigest.com/2012/06/03/movi ... isappoint/

Especially the ending which reads


The script is what fails this movie. It is god awful. There is a much better movie here with a lot more potential than what was realised. Some of the scenes with Fassbender as David are excellent but they are never really used all that well. For the life of me I cannot see the intelligence so many reviewers are touting.

So far it's sounding like this film has the same problems as Avatar, it excels in the visuals department but severely falters when it comes to the actual story and characters.

I saw the film at a midnight show and absolutely loved it.

I don't get why everyone is trashing the character development aspect. Oh yeah, I forgot, Alien and Aliens were masterworks of how to color your characters properly. Except they weren't. At all. And that's okay! As long as you can compensate for this by utilizing your strengths properly and with force, that's okay with me. Prometheus did this. The Noomi Rapace character is given just as much development as Sigourney Weaver's Ripley, while Michael Fassbender's android is given way more color than Ash or Bishop from the first two films.

What made both films, namely Alien, so fascinating? To me it was the mysteriousness of space and the absolute terror it possesses. I felt like Scott did a good job harnessing that here again, only instead of space possessing this it's the moon the scientists visit. His visual scope paired with his feel and ability to develop a terrifying atmosphere over time is simply remarkable.

Plus, the film gets brownie points for:



Loved the final act as well. It was always a monster movie from the start it didn't suddenly just "turn into" one by any stretch. Just like in Alien once they awakened the beast (or in this case, beasts), it slowly but surely took over.

Hope there's a sequel. We shall see.

I'm surprised so many people are voicing disappointment. Expectations must have been through the roof.

Yes, there is that scene where the one scientist apparently thinks it's a good idea to touch the alien snake creature, but this character (can't even remember his name) is set up as a bumbling buffoon from the beginning, so he had it coming.

Yes, character development is limited, but aside from Ripley, this was also true of the other Alien movies. Here, the acting elevates the characters.

I appreciate how the movie at least shows a willingness to ponder questions about existence and the nature of humanity. The fact that it doesn't answer them all is a good thing in my book. We've seen plenty of movies before where a simplistic answer turns out to be disappointing or underwhelming.

Finally, where there are some staple action scenes and creature attacks, they felt organic as opposed to tacked on. Honestly, who wouldn't expect these things from movie set in the Alien universe?