"Don't be afraid. I'm part of the family"
Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is back in stasis aboard the Sulaco when a fire causes the escape pod
to separate from the ship and she crash lands on Fiorina ‘Fury’ 161, a penal colony inhabited only by men. Ripley’s
fellow Aliens survivors all die in
the crash, leaving her alone and stranded in the prison. Unfortunately for
Ripley and the prisoners, an alien face hugger was on board the pod and has
also survived the crash.
While I’ve been watching the Alien franchise for the first time over the last few weeks I’ve
been told by numerous people that Alien 3
was by far the weakest of the series. So far, I’d have to agree. The film
entered production without a completed script and the messiness of the film is
some testament to that. It feels as though the film doesn’t know what it wants
to be. It is less scary than even Aliens
but has a bit more of a dramatic quality than Alien. The film also appears to introduce a comic element to the
series but this fails miserably. The story feels incoherent and the characters
are barely written. In both previous instalments the large cast always felt
well written and as though they were rounded characters. In Alien 3 the majority of them appear to
be just cannon fodder. The only new character that I cared a little about was
killed off within the first half.