ANALYSIS OF A QUADRILOGY NOT QUITE LIKE ANY OTHER : "ALIEN3"

In for a penny, in for a pound. I might as well do the whole quadrilogy while I’m about it. Like I said last week though, to be fair the Alien series (it turns out) is the exception to the rule. “The rule” being that usually, even if a first film is potentially brilliant, the more sequels are made of it, the worse they turn out. But with such great directors and actors on board, really, the room for failure drops significantly. And David Fincher is, categorically, one of my favourite directors ever. Hence, I really, really, had to watch this. And review it. So, last time we abandoned Ripley, she was once again in cryosleep, crossing the galaxy with the survivors of the previous calamity. It seemed as if her troubles were over, but in fact they may, in a sense, only just be beginning. When a mysterious malfunction forces the ship to crash land, Ripley is the sole survivor. She is now officially the only woman on Fiorina 161, once a maximum security prison, now almost abandoned inhabited by the inmates who have “found religion”. Ripley has one single fear in this whole unfortunate turn of events: that an alien had snuck on board her ship and could have not found its way onto the planet. Pretty soon the bodies of the inmates begin to pile up… Her fears seem to have been confirmed… Now, I have to say we’re at an interesting point in the quadrilogy. I mean, this film is brilliant. There is a brilliant plot-twist at the end, which, the problem is, seems to bring the story to its natural end. I have the DVD for the fourth film and will review it next week, but the premise for it seems a little… Well, I do know it’s meant to be sci-fi but even so… We’ll have to wait and see if Jean-Pierre Jeunet can make it work. In the meanwhile, what of David Fincher? Stylistically the film is Fincher through and through and through, i.e. dark, gothic with a slightly apocalyptic feel about it. Fincher once again goes down the route of suspense rather than jump-scares. There are a few classical tropes employed, such as chase scenes down long, dark corridors, with the added stylistic renovation of our first p.o.v .shot from an alien. I mean, true, it doesn’t turn out to be anything mind-blowing but still, three films in, it needed to be done… It’s good quality adventure entertainment basically. It’s not an art piece, it will not change your world but hey. Not all films are meant to… And this one is perfect the way it is…