Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this monster movie is not for kids. There is a heavy atmosphere of doom and hostility, even without the ravenous, clawed monster on the prowl. Ellen Ripley is surrounded by unfriendly men, who are, in fact, dangerous convicts, described as murderers, rapists, and child molesters, just barely keeping their violence under control with work and monkish religion. Authority figures, when they finally show up, are untrustworthy and evil. The only solution shown in dealing with this situation and this society is suicide.
Families can talk about the setting: a prison-planet of life-sentence criminals who use prayer to stay docile and disciplined, so much so that no weapons are needed. But they are all men, living more like monks than convicts, and not to be trusted around women. Is this a real solution? The finale poses a real what-would-you-do question, when there probably isn't any comfortable answer. You could ask kids why people would find a grim tale like this entertaining? What are their favorite sci-fi movies and why?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Charles Cassady, Jr.
Grim and uncompromising, ALIEN3 was a troubled, expensive production that burned through an assortment of directors before it finally landed on the screen courtesy of David Fincher, a filmmaker whose work dwells on serial killers, crime, and the darkest sides of human nature. If cheering sci-fi fans (many of them kids) thought that Fincher would continue the militaristic heroics of the previousAliens they were badly mistaken.
The opening is a shocking repudiation of the previous movie's ending, when reluctant alien-fighter Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) single-handedly saved a little girl space colonist and a few wounded soldiers from voracious, savage, parasitic space monsters that look like fanged skeletons crossed with spiders. It's a deadly, acid-blooded species that interests the treacherous "Company" that runs everything in the dismal future Earth society portrayed here. At the beginning of Alien3, the upbeat outcome suddenly turns upside down. An escape pod carrying Ripley and the other survivors mysteriously, automatically ejects from its mother ship and crash-lands in the ocean of a random planet. All but Ripley are found dead -- even the child (who undergoes an icky autopsy).
Worse is to come. The planet happens to be an all-male prison/factory, staffed by murderers, rapists, and child-molesters, though its population has been pared down to a maintenance crew of a couple dozen. There are no guns or weapons here; the men control their psychotic impulses through work and prayer, living much like monks, right down to shaven heads and vows of celibacy. Ripley's feminine presence alone is disruptive.
Worse is to come. Somehow a larval alien stowed away on board the escape pod. It infects a prisoner's pet dog, from which it emerges a full-scale monster, on the chase for fresh human victims. Ripley suspects something like this has happened, as prisoners turned up hideously killed, but the few men who can tolerate her are disbelieving.
Worse is to come; there's no way off the planet except by calling the Company. And worse is to come, worse even than that. If the original Alien seemed gloomy and gothic, more of a haunted-house chiller than the cosmic fairy tales popular at the time (think Star Wars), this one goes even further to convey a sense of desolation and hopelessness. There's not an ounce of humor here, but if there were, it would have to be someone saying to Ripley at some point, "It sure sucks to be you!"
Actress Weaver does a commendable job, giving a very grueling physical performance (her own head shaved bald much of the time) and taking the beleaguered heroine to the outer limits of despair and ultimate sacrifice.
While Alien3 was not much of an audience crowd-pleaser, more sequels followed. Maybe the nearest thing to the avaricious, alien-coveting Company in real life is Hollywood -- who can't leave these fiends alone. Later films in the series, like Alien Vs. Predator, went more for the PG-13 comic-book and action elements. Maybe Alien3 could be praised in retrospect for trying to stay seriously grounded and stone-sober in its horrors. But if science-fiction is meant to convey a "sense of wonder," the question here is "wonder who would find this entertaining?"
Families looking for happier alien tales should try Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Transformers, and E.T..
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentRipley is scantily clad in a few scenes, and takes a shower (but nothing is shown). Inmates talk of their vows of celibacy, and a group of them try to gang-rape the lone woman. Another has consenting, non-explicit "fraternizing" with her. |
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ViolenceCarnage, as human characters are clawed bloody by the alien; fall into rotating fan blades; get torn apart, incinerated, or have little aliens burst out of them (some of these in combination!). One victim is a dog. An autopsy is performed on the dead little girl from the last movie that viewers came to care for -- what we hear is worse than what we see, but it's pretty grisly. A macabre, dismembered android is briefly brought back to life. |
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Language"S--t," "f--k," and lots of it. |
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Social BehaviorRipley is pushed to inhuman limits here by duress and peril, and while she behaves with courage and resourcefulness, her final decision is pretty horrific and unthinkable for many viewers. The men who surround her are described as hardcore convicts, keeping their lust and violence in check with prayer (and that's not exactly foolproof). One who seems sympathetic confesses to being a drug addict, who caused operating-table deaths while under the influence. The noble-hearted android Bishop (what's left of him) asks for and receives a mercy killing. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoSocial drinking, and one character declares himself an addict whose drug use caused casualties. |
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