It's about as good as an 'origin story' gets.

Rating: 6/10 (8 November 2006)

Well, I would have thought this movie to have been far better than what it was.Perhaps I've been spoiled by the special effects that litter modern day films of the same nature, but I wasn't buyin' the guy crawling around in an 'alien' costume one bit.
Many people hail Ridly Scott for his directing talents, I on the other hand find that he is a little bit over-rated. Don't get me wrong, he does a fantastic job with all that he does, but he doesn't seem to push the envelope; he does as is expected to get the job done, but not too much else.
That being said, Alien was probably the hardest film to do out of the entire franchise, origin stories always are. Aside from this film, I have only watched the second installment before writing this review so as not to taint my views too much.I think the best thing about 'Alien' is that it left a lot of room to expand and improve.
So on the final report I may say that do to the dry and almost pointless dialog at times and the poor attempts at astonishing us with lots of flashing buttons, as well as 'satisfactory' direction I would give this 5 out of 10 only to add another point for a total of 6 because without this film we may not have seen 'Aliens' or the others to follow.
It's worth watching, especially to study the development of cinema.