The Friday Tramp Re-View: Alien 3

 

Alien³, directed by David Fincher, starring Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Charles S. Dutton, Brian Glover, Paul McGann.

Ridley Scott’s baffling prequel to the Alien universe, Prometheus, was released to buy on DVD and Blu-ray this week, promising that ‘Questions will be answered’. Precisely which questions will be answered the trailer doesn’t say, but I’m assuming the promised alternate beginning and ending will explain why not a single character acts like a recognisable human being throughout the whole film. Perhaps there’s a deleted scene where they all smoke space crack at the beginning, or something. Anyway. The DVD’s not available to rent until December, and I’ll be damned if I’m shelling out fifteen quid just to find out why the big pale man drank the goop and then fell to bits. When it comes out to rent I’ll do a special post carefully and pedantically detailing just how broken the film is. So you can look forward to that.

In the spirit of unrealistic expectations dashed by disappointment, this week I’ll be reviewing the oft-derided-but-not-without-considerable-merit Alien³. Alien³ was David Fincher’s debut, a director known for visual flair and dark themes, showcased in more recent pictures such as Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac. Of the four main Alien movies (not counting the Alien vs. Predator franchise, which happily seems to have died quietly in the corner), Alien³ is far and away the most controversial, plagued with studio interference, an unfinished script and most famously, an ambitious first-time director whose experience filming was so traumatic that twenty years later he still refuses to discuss the film in any detail. In contrast, Alien³ faced the uphill struggle of following Alien and Aliens, both classics in their own right. In the days before The Phantom Menace, Alien³ was second only to The Godfather Part III as the most disappointing follow-up to a successful and critically acclaimed franchise. 

Ripley contemplates her grim situation.

The thing is, Alien³ isn’t that actually that bad. It’s messy sure; the theatrical cut has some major plot holes, and its bleak setting, nihilistic script, and dearth of likeable characters are hard to swallow. Moreover, Hicks is killed off before the opening credits have rolled, and Newt, the little girl who Ripley fought so hard to save in Aliens, bites it by drowning in her own cryogenic fluid when the ship crashes on to Fiorna 161. Oh, and Ripley finds out that she’s got an alien queen inside her, she’s going to die in the most horrible way possible, and there’s nothing she can do about it. It’s fair to say, then that Alien³ takes everyone and everything you cared about in its predecessors and throws them into a big vat of concentrated acid in front of your eyes. But does this make for a bad horror film? I’m not so sure it does. Moreover, despite its reputation as somewhat of a disaster, I’ve yet to meet anyone in person who doesn’t like it. Perhaps it’s a generational thing – I was only six when the film hit cinemas, and so didn’t see it until much later, and thus without the attendant hype – but many of my peers don’t just like Alien³: it’s their favourite one. I wouldn’t go that far; for me Ridley Scott’s Alien will always be the best, with all its psychosexual horror and slasher-movie sensibilities. The brilliantly paced and remarkably tense Aliens is a close second, but Alien³, I think, easily stands alongside Scott and Cameron’s pieces as a different, yet equally valid interpretation of the series. There are several set pieces to rival Cameron’s, for example, the sequence where they try to flush out the creature with fire is indicative of Fincher’s future visual bravura, and the premise is a return to the claustrophobia that served Alien so well.   

Up close and personal with ol' bitey tongue.

The beginning of Alien³ is possibly the most shocking sequence of the whole film, because it literally throws out almost everyone that we cared about from Aliens. The shock of the opening scenes hangs like a dark cloud over the rest of the running time, and neither Ripley nor the audience ever fully recover. That the film never recovers from the beginning is one of the major problems people have with Alien³, but I think this criticism confuses the audience reaction with the film itself. Jarring as the opening sequence is, it appropriately sets the tone; gloomy, yes, but also introspective and ruthlessly nihilistic; in profound contrast to Aliens’ extrovert, ultra machismo. Alien³ takes that heroic macho-military fetishism and turns it on its head; setting events on an all-male double-Y chromosome prison. In this sense, the film returns to the spirit of Alien; a hostile invader who not only threatens the lives of the characters, but more importantly, attacks their masculinity. In Alien, this is realised with the cross-species rape of John Hurt’s Kane. In an inspired touch, in Alien³ it’s Ripley herself as much as the familiar xenomorph that threatens the stable masculinity of the colony on Fury 161, a theme that survived from the earliest drafts of the script. In that regard, Alien³ beats Aliens hands down: the insurmountable tension and efficient characterisation of Cameron’s entry notwithstanding, there really are no ideas in Aliens that are as risky or challenging as those in Alien³. From the first minute to the last, this feels like that the concluding chapter in the Alien saga (which is partly why Alien Resurrection feels more like a spin-off than a direct sequel), and it’s to the film’s credit that it doesn’t pull its punches with the relentless darkness it eschews.

Of course, many of the old criticisms still stand: the admirable darkness of the film often slips into gloominess, and despite the lengthy, sometimes interminable conversations between characters, it’s difficult to keep track of who’s who. Furthermore, none of them ever really express either the grubby, blue-collar humanity of Alien, or the efficient, pulpy, rough-and-tumble characterisation of Aliens. For the most part, we care little about the prisoners as the xenomorph offs them one by one. That said, Brian Glover’s performance as superintendent Andrews is a stand-out exercise in being an insufferable prick, and both Charles Dutton and Charles Dance portray their characters with nuance and believability, amidst a background of interchangeable faces that serve merely as alien fodder. Elsewhere, plot holes abound, and characters (I’m looking at you, Golic) seem to disappear with nary a mention as to their whereabouts or well being.

A rare moment of levity on set between star Weaver and Fincher.

Alien³’s strengths lie in its tone and mood, and in this respect, it’s arguably the best of the series. Cinematographer Alex Thomson does an incredible job of creating a look that is both distinctive and yet feels part of the same world as its forbears. Indeed, the technical aspects of the film often work together beautifully: the set design is magnificently baroque, and the score by Elliot Goldenthal is effective and visceral. Moreover, the look of the creature, in a constant state of evolution, is animalistic, deadly and different enough from previous incarnations to remain interesting, even if some of the later composite model shots of the alien shots look oddly computer generated. Parts of the film are strangely funny, but very effectively so; Andrews’ ball bouncing after the alien gets him; the running joke of Aaron ’85’s nickname, even Ripley’s weary line to the creature ‘you’ve been in my life so long, I can’t remember anything else’ plays as a caustic, darkly comic, even perversely erotic interpretation of her  inescapable relationship with the xenomorph.

Alien³ is a deeply flawed, but fascinating, entry into the series. Although almost universally hated on release, it’s aged well, especially in comparison to the silly Alien Resurrection and the unspeakably atrocious Alien Vs. Predator franchise. Moreover, compare it to equally hated missteps such as the aforementioned Star Wars and Godfather disasters and it's evident which movie time has been kinder to. Both of those films have had at least a decade to mature, and by and large, they’ve both just turned to so much cheap vinegar, becoming sourer with each passing year. Not so with Alien³: evidence of its troubled production pervades throughout, and it remains one of the most notorious examples of a nightmarish shoot. But despite these problems, Fincher’s entry gives us something fresh, original and different from the previous episodes. Alien³’s unrelenting darkness, beautifully crafted mood and subtle, dark humour fits perfectly with the last true film of the series. 

The Friday Tramp Review: Looper

Looper, directed by Rian Johnson, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Jeff Daniels, Emily Blunt.

Rian Johnson’s third feature, following his wonderful debut Brick, and 2008’s disappointing con-man fairytale The Brothers Bloom, is his largest, most ambitious to date, featuring a captivating central performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Looper follows Joe, a hitman in 2044 whose job it is to assassinate undesirables sent back from thirty years in the future. He is the eponymous looper, enjoying handsome rewards and a lavish lifestyle with one catch: eventually he will meet, and be compelled to kill, his future self, played with an appropriate impatience by Bruce Willis. The reward is an early retirement, a big cash settlement and thirty years to contemplate the inevitable. The reason that the future gangsters don’t just send the ex-loopers back to someone else to kill them is never addressed, nor are the various plot holes that present themselves, but it matters little that the film doesn’t concern itself too closely with the minutiae of time travel movie paradoxes. Rather, Looper is at heart a character piece, with both JGL and Willis doing a fine job of bringing pathos and believability to a character who is often so morally reprehensible he makes Rick Deckard look like a boy scout. Granted, it’s a character piece with hoverbikes, retro-futuristic weaponry and one of the best-realised and believable futurescapes this side of Blade Runner, with shanty towns lining the streets as Joe and his pals pass by in their solar-powered sports cars, seemingly indifferent to the extreme poverty surrounding them.

The future looks none too bright for Joe

Indeed, Looper’s most effective scene is the tense discussion between young Joe and his future self in a 1950s-styled diner. When young Joe, effectively standing in for the audience, asks old Joe how the time loop works the older man just tells him he doesn’t want to waste time having to draw diagrams with straws. It’s not why they’re meeting, and it’s not why we as an audience are watching, either. Johnson seems acutely aware that films like Looper, with complex premises and plots, are often susceptible to those enemies of narrative economy: needless exposition and unnecessary voiceovers. The director plays with both these clichés, first by beginning Looper with a voiceover from JGL, only to drop it before bringing it back at the end; referring both to the conventions of film noir, and to the rightly-maligned voiceover narration that was hastily put together for Blade Runner’s original theatrical release. Second, the frequent expository discussions between characters are often interrupted mid-explanation, leaving us with just enough information to get through without ruining the film’s singular sense of momentum.

It’s that sense of momentum, built up in the first two acts, that keeps things compelling in the final third, where the action slows in favour of developing the relationship between young Joe and Sarah (spot the reference), played by the ever-reliable Emily Blunt. Another bugbear of big action cinema, the shoe-horned love interest, Sarah and Joe’s reluctant friendship gives us just enough decent characterisation and well-placed plot developments to maintain emotional interest, even if we all know where it’s going. Moreover, it’s in this section that old Joe goes into full Terminator-mode, going after a hit-list of children (yes, children), knowing that one of them will grow into the man who will murder his future wife. It’s one of Looper’s greatest strengths that it borrows so heavily from the sci-fi canon without ever feeling derivative. The casting of Willis is an obvious homage to Twelve Monkeys, and the final act plays almost identically to the early scenes in James Cameron’s seminal time-travel yarn. Just as he did with detective movie Brick, Johnson blends a mixture of the familiar to make something that feels new and refreshing, though it’s fair to say that despite its emotional depth, Looper lacks the intellectual complexity of many of the works to which it pays tribute. In addition, and without spoiling anything, the ending feels just a little too neat and tidy, and while there’s little point in picking apart plot holes in this sort of film, there do seem to be one or two that could have been tightened at the scripting stage.

What with Neill Blomkamp's District 9, Duncan Jones’ excellent Moon and Source Code, Chris Nolan’s Inception and now Johnson’s Looper, it seems that intelligent, single concept science fiction has surely returned to mainstream cinema. Where, for example, Jones’ recent triumphs felt like callbacks to the meditative sci-fi of the 1960s and 70s,  Johnson’s entry in the genre is in many ways a tribute to the science fiction of the 1980s; movies that blended big ideas with bigger action. Though undoubtedly a smart film, Looper doesn’t match up to Cameron or Ridley Scott’s best work, and at no point is it at as groundbreaking as either The Terminator or Blade Runner. Nor is it as audacious as Paul Verhoeven’s extravaganza of violence, Total Recall. But consider this year’s remake of that film, widely considered a bland, flat and pointless retread of Verhoeven's original. Then consider Johnson’s film. Flawed, yes, but full of personality and ambition, not to mention giving us another great turn from JGL, finally in a leading role after playing second fiddle to the DiCaprios and Bales of Blockbusterville. While lacking the intellectual heft of the films to which it aspires, Looper is still challenging, engaging, and one of the most satisfying sci-fi movies you’re likely to see this year.