The very worst of the franchise

Alien 3 is the third best of the franchise. Honestly, while it has its flaws it's not a bad movie, it's just not the sequel to Aliens that everyone had hoped for. As much as I loved Aliens, it had a twinge of camp to it, and Alien 3 was just bleak.

I liked it. Hated that it veered so far from the Aliens story, but still an interesting film.

a disappointment for sure.

While it still wouldn't be great, I'd dislike Alien 3 a lot less if it existed in a vacuum in some alternate doomed continuity but it's a terrible sequel that literally killed the series & it has unsuccessfully been trying to "resurrect" itself for 30 years. It's difficult to comprehend why this dreary, hopeless, nihilistic arthouse attempt at an Alien sequel is what the studio wanted as it's difficult to imagine a less commercially appealing, crowd-pleasing Alien film than Alien 3.

None of the Alien movies are 'Bad'.

I would say, Alien 3 is the weakest of the franchise.

Prometheus & Covenant went back to the space jockeys, expanded the Alien universe with evolution/possible variations of Xeno species and explored the psychosis of Androids even deeper. While all other sequels focused on Xenos and Xenos only. That's why Prometheus & Covenant excel; although it may have under-whelmed some audiences because it played with multiple themes all together (leaving aside the major Xeno action/horror area) and may have irritated some by its downright focus on cynical characters & human hubris which resulted into bad decisions - unexpected from professional spaceship crews & scientists.

I'd rather watch this than Aliens.