4 out of 5

Director: Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott is a visionary. He has intense vision that translates to the screen and understands – perhaps better than any modern director – how to balance art with film. But I also don’t feel that, as a result, he’s made a perfect film, and Alien encapsulates this. The opening 2/3rds of the film are gorgeous. The patience, the juxtaposition of characters and sparse use of dialogue to let us know who’s who. It captures the breathless isolation of 2001, somehow, with several crew members on this spaceship. And even viewing it in 2011 the practical effects are so well done for this opening portion that you’re in it – you’re puzzled with the crew as their cryogenic sleep is halted to check on a potential SOS signal on a random planet – the discovery of a crashed ship on this planet… and the realization that something undesired has gotten onto their own ship. Scott saw this as horror and he nailed it. …Initially. There are a couple strange cuts when things start to heat up that start as awesome and then rob the moment of the same momentum – during the initial spotting of the alien, the reveal with Ian Holm… and at this point Scott’s (in my opinion) flaw comes out because he wants to stop making art and start making a movie. While conceptually it feels perfect, and all of the actors and sets bring this to life, once we know about the alien and it’s for sure loose and killing people, the movie starts to feel safe again. You can pick out the winners and losers, and even a last-minute attempt at freaking us out doesn’t really push the viewer – me – over the edge. Still – is it gorgeous? It is every corridor horror video game you’ve ever wanted in a film? Yes. But when the awesome minimalist score from Jerry Goldsmith transforms into a more typical Hollywood bombast, you know the scares are over, you can relax, and it’ll be credits rolling soon.