Ripley's a perfect horror heroine here.

Rating: 7/10 (22 August 2012)

The main reason that makes this a great movie for me is that is totally focused on the alien story, makes you feel their desperation from being alone with that thing in outer space all through the film, there's no rest for anything else. Plus the effects (for instance, Ash's scene) are great for 1979. But Ripley steals the show, played brilliantly by Sigourney Weaver, here's a character I can feel totally identified with. She reflects my ideal concept of a woman heroine in this movie. Her look, expressions, every move is perfect. None of that happens on Cameron's sequel, when they added a little girl so we can cheer for her and cry, I assume, which I didn't, and Ripley is turned into a sentimental Rambo with big weapons, losing all the enigmatic charm I loved so much here. This is the best movie Ridley Scott has ever made, even when the last scene could have been better for my taste, and surpasses by far Cameron's "Aliens", which is just a very dumb version of Terminator. I highly recommend Alien as a sci-fi horror, along with John Carpenter's The Thing. 8/10.