Review of Alien 3

Introduction

Another Alien film, another new director, this time in the shape of David Fincher. Alien 3 marked his directorial debut, and he has of course gone on to bigger and better things. The early beginnings of his style are evident here though.

The film almost instantly severs all ties with Aliens during the opening scenes, and essentially tries to stay closer to the original film. This was a bit of a gamble and overall it doesn`t pay off.

The cast seem to come from an ensemble of TV favourites (Brian Glover, Clive Mantle, Paul McGann, Charles Dance and Pete Postlethwaite), and they all do varying jobs of bringing life to their characters.

Video

A 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer is presented here and it looks excellent. Lighting is used to very good effect to set the mood and tone of the film throughout, and it is all translated very well on DVD. The visual style is probably the highlight of the whole film, and it is pleasing to see it so well represented on DVD.

The special effects generally look dated. Some still look ok, but most look glaringly obvious and fake.

Audio

A restrained DD5.1 soundtrack is presented here. With the lack of gunfire, you`re listening out for some good ambient sounds, there`s some action for the surround speakers, some nice rumbling bass, and there`s another good score on offer which really comes to the fore.

Features

A poor show here, just a trailer and a brief 20-minute documentary. The documentary is ok, but given the high quality extras of preceding discs it`s rather a let-down. There could have been a lot more here. It`s reasonably well known that the finished product was not what Fincher intended, and it would have been great to learn more about this, via deleted scenes, a director`s cut or more in-depth documentaries.

Conclusion

Alien 3 fails to live up to the high expectations generated by the first two films. Once again it`s a new film in its own right, but it has to carry the burden of the great films that have preceded it. And it can`t carry that burden very well.

It`s still just about worth a rental if you`ve not seen the film for a while, but the disc, like the film, is ultimately a let-down due to the lack of extras. Picture and sound are good, but there`s so much more that could have been included.