Sigourney Weaver plays the part of Ellen Ripley extrememly well, she has made the alien films her own, and her acting indeed has increased since she first popped up in the first movie.
Alien 3 is not my personal best, I am a really big fan of the alien films but thought this one was missing something.
The story opens with ripleys ship landing in the area of a prison, the prison is for hard criminals who have commited appaling crimes including rape. When she is pulled from the wreckage of the ship, her 2 companions from the the last film are both dead, ripley spots the familiar signs of acid burns, indicating that an alien has landed with them, she orders the doctor to do a postmortem and open the little girls chest, he does this and there are no signs of the alien.
Ripley is the only female here and she remains her tough nut image and shaves her head, she still suspects something is not right and it is not long before her fears are turned into reality. Indeed there was an alien, which is now loose in the prison, people are being killed in the usual gory way, but this time something is different. The alien comes face to face with Ripley but will not touch her, the reason, ripley has a little alien baby of her own, tucked away inside her.
The story continues as everyone tries to over come the alien, large loss of life is inevitable and the ending made me think that this was the last time we would see alien on our screens again.
Ripley plunges into a furnace, while the alien inside her is trying to escape. There is no way she could survive that, or could she?

The film although was set in a very depressing surround was good but not one to get exited about, there was all the elements of a good film but something missing, the story line wasn't as strong and fast as the others have been, it took longer to get going, and more time was spent on talking rather than action.