You know, you really almost have to feel sorry for this one. Facing the improbable job of following a film that was in many ways better than the original, the makers of this one were stuck with a bit of a dilemma. Do they follow the same fast paced, action format of the second or go back to the claustrophobic, gothic feel of the first?

The film starts out with Ripley's space pod thingy crashing on a desolate planet, home to a sort of prison that houses a small colony of various rapists, thieves, and murderers from across the galaxy. Of course, a facehugger or two managed to squirm it's way into the escape pod after "Aliens", and actually impregnates Ripley while she's in space hibernation, or whatever it's called. The other facehugger conveniently escapes the ship upon it's crashing, and attaches itself to one of the inmates dogs, thus spelling the doom for everyone there.

Following "Aliens" the idea here was to go back to the feel of the original, and with this they do succeed somewhat. Gone is the action stuff of the second one, and back is the claustrophobic feel of the first. However, unlike the first film where you actually liked some of the characters, how can you root for a group where almost everyone is a convict of some sort? Simply put, you can't. Ripley however, is still the same old Ripley, and it is very interesting to see how she handles herself once she discovers that she is now a carrier for an alien. Speaking of the alien, the creature looked ok, but we only get really quick glimpses of it, and the same can be said for the gore scenes. I did not really buy into the idea that since the alien came out of a dog that it would inherit some doglike traits (running on all fours, etc.), that seemed a little lame to me. An alien is an alien dammit. If an alien popped out of a kangaroo would it threateningly go "hop hop" towards it's prey? I will give credit to this one for doing it's own thing and not following the exact formula of "Aliens". I think many were disappointed they did not continue with this format and thus the bad rep this one got from the fans. And when is the last time you saw such a downbeat, depressing ending in a major studio flick? I'm surprised that ending stayed as is. All in all, nothing real great, but nothing real bad either. Try not to think of "Aliens" and appreciate this one for doing its own thing.