FILM

Rip It Up, Issue 180, 1 July 1992, Page 30

FILM

ALIEN 3 Director: David Fincher 'The Bitch is Back' reads the ambiguous legend, above an image of Sigourney Weaver and a salivating, snarling alien in what must be the last of a series triptych that began back in 1979 with Ridley Scott's Alien. This is the final confrontation between Lieutenant Ripley and the monster, set on the barren planet Fiorina 161, an outpost populated by the toughest criminals imaginable—rapists, murderers and child molesters.

With shaved head, looking like a cross between Sinead O'Connor and a latter-day Falconetti [in Dreyer's Joan of Arc], it's Sigourney Weaver's Ripley that holds the film together: she makes the human connections, in her responses to the death of a child early on in the film, and some beautifully played scenes with Charles Dance as a morphine-addicted medic. She also provides A lien 3 with its boldest visual moment, diving backwards into a sea of flames, clutching the diminutive monster as it tears out of her breast.

With a story by our own Vincent Ward (who was down to direct the film in its early days), Alien 3 is quite a morality tale. It's an allegory of corrup-

tion and greed—the 'Company' are determined to harness the monster as a possible weapon, regardless of what the consequences may be. At one point there are even stirring soapbox speeches by Weaver and Dutton to carefully-posed groups of

prisoners. But there's also humour when Weaver, knowing she is carrying the monster's progeny, assures it, 'Don't be afraid—l'm part of the family'; and irony. One of the goriest moments is when Weaver activates a badly mutilated android. The final choice for director was David Fincher whose credits lie in the world of rock video (he was responsible Madonna's 'Express Yourself' and 'Vogue'). Fincher pumps up the paranoia with a knowing hand, specializing in disorientating highspeed chase sequences with the camera careering round 360 degrees. There's some neat intercutting too (particularly in the opening credits). In the last count, though, it's probably the monster that we've come to see, and, ironically, it's the least successful of the series. Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff have fashioned a ceature more faithful to the drawings of the Swiss artist H. R. Giger who inspired Ridley Scott back in 1979. It's a little

like a lithe warped dinosaur, but nowhere near as horrific as as the all-encompassing wall of pulsating flesh in Aliens with agonised human faces trapped in the protoplasm.

Alien 3 ends with a video screen assuring us that transmission is terminated. Perhaps it has, perhaps not. But in the meantime, I'll be looking at Vincent Ward's Navigator with new eyes . . . WILLIAM DART

BASIC INSTINCT Director: Paul Verhoeven

Basic Instinct was plagued by controversy even while it was shooting in San Francisco last year. This tale of ice-pick wielding psychotic lesbians has been cited as a prime example of Hollywood homophobia and, although it certainly disturbs on that level, the movie's real problem is that it is a rather loosely constructed and derivative thriller. There's a definite sense of deja vu here. Director Paul Verhoeven covered the same ground years ago in his Dutch thriller The Fourth Man, more subtly and without a the graphic sex 'n' slaughter cocktail that Hollywood serves up. Joe

Esterhaz's script (which earnt him a well-publicized 3 million) is basically a retake on his own Jagged Edge, and, after all, what is it with this Michael Douglas that his female leads seem so determined to kill him?

Douglas is a dull and earnest actor (George Dzundza as his sidekick is far more lively) and I find it frankly unbelievable that Sharon Stone and Jeanne Trippiehorn make such determined plays for him (Tripplehorn even hangs in there after an attack that borders on date rape). Stone, playing it ice-pick-cool, comes up with the best performance in the whole movie.

The most memorable moments are the set-pieces: a cleverly shot interrogation scene in which a Stone sexually teases the cops, and a vertiginous car chase that, in 70mm, is guaranteed to have you clutching for your safety belt. Watch out too, for a few brief appearances by Dorothy Malone, as (you've guessed it) a murderous lesbian and Jerry Goldsmith's score, a shimmering retake on SaintSaens but none the less stunning for that.

WILLIAM DART