Alien (1979)

Rating: 7/10 (9 June 2011)

"Why don't you guys freeze him? How come they don't freeze him?"
Alien. One of the movies that made history. One of the movies that every single Sci-Fi movie has copied, cloned or ripped off ever since. Or worse: made fun of.
This is the story of how humanity met the purest, most perfect killer anybody has ever seen before. Or since. It is the story of the commercial starship Nostromo, on it's way back to Earth with a cargo of minerals and a crew of idiots.
The movie starts with the huge ship waking up to respond to a signal of some sort, which for some reason the crew has to investigate and identify. And because they could not find a better reason, they thought of a very compelling one: money. "You investigate, or you go home empty handed". Which after a very, very long mission would have been very unfortunate, I guess. Sure, they start to want to go home shortly after that but... no, I won't say anymore.
Watching this movie more than 30 years after it's premiere, I would say it is not much of a movie. It is long - too long - the sets look like they are some sort of oil rig or refinery or something, the music is lame, the sound is uneven (to be polite), the story is ridiculous, the monster is great but very shy, nothing is really up to expectations, it is one big bad movie.
The actors do a fine job with the story they've got, which calls for them to be and behave like truckers. Truckers in space, should have been called. Tom Skerritt is the captain, John Hurt is the guy with the death wish (also second in command), Sigourney Weaver is the third in command, Ian Holm is the forth in command (kidding, he's the science officer, actually), Veronica Cartwright is the damsel in distress and the other two guys are not payed as much as the others so... just ignore them; everybody else does. There is a cat, too. Very important.
Many have said that this movie has a lot of star power, but I suspect that they were not that much of a star, back in the day. I mean... they only had a few TV movies under their belts, so they couldn't have been all that... shiny, including the director - Ridley Scott. And the fact that all of them have confirmed and went on to become big successful stars makes this movie even more fascinating.
The characters are overaged, out of shape (with one notable exception), they have lousy self preservation instincts and they have even lousier logic. Unfortunately I know people like that, which makes the characters very believable, no mater how crazy that is. I mean... I could see some people go: "Oh my God, this is one huge creepy spaceship! I'm afraid to take one step further but I'm taking it! Oh my God, I could die out here but it is so fascination! Yeah! I'm taking one more step. Oh my God, I'm slipping! There is a huge egg thingy in front of me, why don't I just stick my face in it. Yeah, that seems like the smart thing to do..."
And the story continues to do all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons, even if some guy or another wants to know why they're doing it and other guy or another explains their reasons to do so. Which gets really annoying really fast, and after about the hundredth time they've done that I just gave up and started to fast forward a lot.
Alien. One great movie but... not that great. I understand the sequel was far better. 7/10.